Where MDJ sources from — and why no two pieces enter the catalog the same way.
Most of the catalog comes through the auction houses. Christie's and Bonhams in New York. Sotheby's Geneva. The regional houses in Connecticut, Maryland, Ohio, and Texas. MDJ has working relationships with every cataloger on the East Coast — pieces get held back, condition reports get pulled early, and previews are private.
About a third of what we acquire comes from estates direct. Attorneys, executors, and family who've inherited a vault. We travel for any single estate worth over a quarter million, and we coordinate with appraisers who already know the family. Discretion is built into how we work.
For signed pieces — Cartier, Webb, Van Cleef, Tiffany, Bulgari, Harry Winston, Verdura, Buccellati, and the thirty-five other houses we represent — the relationships are direct. We have first look at certain estate liquidations from designer-house clients. We hold consignments from collectors who want a quiet exit.
We don't buy mass-market gold. We don't broker. We don't do online marketplace arbitrage. If a piece doesn't have a story, a maker, or a one-of-a-kind quality, it doesn't enter the catalog. About eighty percent of what we look at gets passed.
Every piece that arrives at the wholesale desk traveled a different path to get there. The auction catalog. The estate appraisal. The collector who wanted a quiet sale. The designer house with a piece that needed to move. We work all of it.
Every piece in the showroom has a backstory. Most of them are worth telling.
