Tiffany & Co. Desk Sets

Modern sterling silver portable postage scale, ca 1930. Retailed by Tiffany & Co. in New York. Cylindrical with loose-mounted clip; top ring loose-mounted to pullout counterweight st...

Desk oil lamp designed by Charles L. Tiffany for Tiffany & Co. Beautiful desk oil lamp or cigar lighter, created in New York at the Tiffany Studios during the art nouveau period, back in the 1893. This very rare round oil lamp, was realized under the directory period of Charles L. Tiffany (1891-1902) in repousse silver. The design have influences of Roman Revival styles and a lot of symbolisms, depicting the model of a bee associated to the city of Ephesus and mounted with a genuine Roman coin. Bees played an essential role in Greek and Roman religious traditions. They, and the honey they produce, have many symbolic meanings. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that bees were servants and messengers of the gods and goddesses. The Romans believed that a swarm of bees was to be avoided because while the swarm was on the move, they were the carrying messages and doing the biddings of the gods. They also feature in many stories of the Greek and Roman gods. One story tells of the birth of Zeus, King of the Gods renamed Jupiter by the Romans. The coin mounted in this piece show us the standing figure of Jupiter giving victory to the emperor. Roman Coin: Is a genuine Roman bronze antonianus coin from the Imperial period, struck in the name of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus (286-305 AD). The obverse show the armored and crowned bust of Maximinus. At the reverse, he's standing and draped receiving the victory from a naked Jupiter holding a scepter with legend CONCORDIA MILITIAS. Weight: 72.95 Grams, (46.76 Dwt). Measurements: 74 mm by 100 mm by 40 mm (2.90 x 3.94 x 1.57 Inches). Hallmarks: Stamped with the maker's mark, the mark for the assay of the silver , the pattern and order numbers the letter T, for Charles L Tiffany and signed, "TIFFANY & CO. MAKERS SILVER SOLDERED 11638 265 T 309 12". Note: This is the model number 11638, designed by Charles L. Tiffany and produced in 1893. Note: Tiffany silver holloware...

Antique Art Nouveau Tiffany & Co bronze and slag glass 'Pine Needles' desk set stamp box, circa 1910. The box with a hinged lid and containing the original liner for storing stamps, ...

In 1938 Mrs. Georgia Oates — a former southern belle and a recent divorcee — plighted her troth with Mr. Philip Green Gossler, then on his third marriage. If he was, as they used to say, “a caution,” he was also a man of substance. A utilities magnet, he was “one of fifty-nine men who rule America,” according to his 1945 obituary in The New York Times. This 1930s Tiffany desk set belonged to him, and his initials “P.G.G.” are engraved on all of its parts, except for the notepad holder that didn't have a blank field large enough for it. Born in Columbia, Pennsylvania, Gossler attended the local university before studying electrical engineering at Columbia. Making a name for himself at Edison General Electric, he went on to Royal Electric in Montreal. Returning to New York, he rose through the ranks of Columbia Gas & Electric to become chairman, and, along the way, he orchestrated the mergers and acquisitions that made it one of the largest utility cartels in the world, with thirty-four companies in eight states. Appointed a director of the Guaranty Trust Company, he was admitted to the Metropolitan, University, and Piping Rock clubs, as well as the Royal Sailing Club in Nassau, where he wintered on his Hog Island estate. Gossler may have kept this desk set at his office, his East 65th Street townhouse, or his Nassau house. In any case, it was made from sterling-silver-mounted Portor marble. Portor is mined in Italy where it's known as Portoro. It was the French, however, who most favored its striking coloration of black, yellow, and white. That's why they often used it to top off their tables from the 17th century on. We believe our 1930s desk set was made for Tiffany Paris, not Tiffany New York, because it bears the Tiffany hallmark but not the so-called maker’s mark, which is found on all Tiffany New York silver. In addition, its au courant design is more in keeping with the work of the Paris Art Deco masters than the more traditional New York designers of that day. Among the Paris designers who had worked for Tiffany there were André Groult and Armand Rateau, who had designed their Avenue de l’Opera showroom. This isn’t to say that Gossler’s desk set was necessarily purchased there, since the Paris-made goods were also shipped to New York, where, it was hoped, they might catch the eyes of the discerning few who could still afford to buy luxury goods in the Depression. When Gossler died in 1945 the desk set was presumably passed on to his widow, and then, when she breathed her last, to her beautiful daughter Marion, who expired in 2018 at the age 99. That Marion had bothered to keep it says more about her love of the beautiful than her fondness for her stepfather, whom she didn’t much like. This, in spite of his having footed the bill for her extravagant 1938 coming out at his townhouse, and the St. Regis rooftop supper dance that followed. She too, as it turned out, was “a caution,” painting her fingernails black to match her dark moods, earning her the sobriquet "Black Marion." Back then, her name was Marion Oates, which changed on her marriage to Thomas Leiter, a Marshall Field & Company heir, and then once again following a divorce and a remarriage to Robert H. Charles, Assistant Secretary of the US Air force. Those marriages gave her the wherewithal to become Washington, D.C.’s most celebrated hostess, Oatsie Charles (a sobriquet bestowed by her by fellow debutante Brenda Frazier). There, she regularly hung out a ham for the likes of Jackie and John Kennedy, Ian Fleming, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, and Deeda Blair...