1950s Jewellery Collection Includes Earrings Worn By Marilyn Monroe | Antiques Roadshow

So this is a small selection of the costume jewellery you've shown me, and you're obviously a little bit hooked. Well in the 1980s I was living in London and I was invited to a private jewellery sale in a flat and so as soon as I saw it I thought, that's pirate treasure, I love it. I think it's wonderful, absolutely wonderful. This piece by Miriam Haskell, she insisted on really high quality. These faux pearls are all individually dipped, they're extremely high quality and she became one of the top labels from the early 1920s on. And of course this by DiMario, who had worked for Haskell, is again beautifully made. This is a period, we're talking 1950s, when people were demanding really good quality costume jewellery. Costume jewellery comes in all sorts of qualities, but you've managed to pick some of the better costume jewellery. About this time Mamie Eisenhower was wearing costume jewellery to a presidential ball, so it had moved up a league. It was then acceptable to have, as long as it was well designed, that was the whole thing. Now these by Napier, they have a really nice little story, don't they? I bought them from this girl and she gave me a photocopy of an advert where Marilyn Monroe was wearing the earrings. I mean, could you get any more glamorous than that? Ultimate bling, isn't it really? Total. And these by Kenneth J. Lane, I mean these have got a bit of everything in them. It hints at Egypt, it hints at the Asian and these again have got a lot of bling. This is a lovely selection and actually difficult to find now. That's the point. Now value, the Miriam Haskell I'd say has got to be a thousand to fifteen hundred. I mean it really is top quality and incredibly good condition. The DiMario, interestingly, because it's three string, I'd put a little higher than that. I'd say fifteen hundred to two thousand. My goodness. The earrings, earrings tend to be not as popular as necklaces but actually with their connection and also they're Napier, they're incredibly well made. So I'd probably put them at a thousand, fifteen hundred pounds. And I love the Kenneth J. Lane. I think they're a little bit less. I think probably five hundred to six hundred pounds. Well, it's truly pirate treasure. It's wonderful. I wonder what it would be worth in pieces of eight.