A practical guide for the floor. How to position estate and vintage pieces, what to say to a contemporary client, and where the conversation usually goes wrong.
Distilled from fifteen years of trunk shows, partner conversations, and follow-up calls about why pieces moved or didn't.
Estate pieces are not commodity jewelry. The story — who made it, when, how, and why it survived — is the value proposition. Clients buying contemporary jewelry are buying the brand. Clients buying estate are buying the piece's biography. Lead with the story; the price is what closes, not what opens.
Every memo ships with the provenance file: signed certificates, hallmark photos, period research, original boxes when they exist. Don't keep this in the back. Lay it on the case. The folder is part of the piece's value, and seeing it builds trust faster than any verbal claim.
Don't build a window of estate. One signed showpiece in a case of contemporary jewelry pulls clients in to ask about it. A whole case of estate without a contemporary anchor reads as a museum display, not a retail floor.
Two-week memos exist for a reason: to let the piece sit in the case, get tried on, get reconsidered. Pieces that sell on memo usually do so on day six through twelve, not day one. Don't pull the piece early because it didn't move on day three.
Some buyers will want to read about the piece between the showing and the close. Email them the provenance summary, the maker's history, comparable pieces in major collections. The follow-up email is often what converts.
Some pieces aren't right for some floors. A David Webb cuff in a town of mostly bridal-and-anniversary doesn't move; a Victorian sapphire necklace in a market dominated by tennis bracelets doesn't move; a Burmese ruby ring in a town with no oil money doesn't move.
If you've memoed a piece and it sat for two weeks without a single client asking about it, that's a signal — not about the piece, but about the fit. Return it. We'll send something more aligned with your floor next time.
For a faster read on what's working in markets like yours, the team at MDJ tracks conversion patterns across all two thousand partners. A quick phone call gets you a steer.
Eighteen hundred pieces on the floor. Memo what works for your case; we'll handle shipping.
Open the CatalogField-ready notes on each major estate era — what to say, what to look for, what differentiates the period.
Read the Guides