Show us the family jewels!

It doesn’t have to be the maharajah’s pearls or a golf ball sized diamond to be valuable. While so many of the items we accumulate end up worn out or abandoned without a second thought, even the humblest of jewelry often retains an emotional value far beyond its material worth.

This week we invite you to post pictures of your most memorable jewels and tell us about the stories and memories they hold. We’ll be selecting the best 3 posts and those readers get $50 gift certificates for jewels. Go HERE to post your images.

I’ll show you mine and now you show me yours!

My sister, Liz brought back the Angela Caputi bracelet (4) and necklace (5) from Italy. I wear the bracelet so much I worry I’m wearing it out! We’ve been giving one another gifts of jewelry forever. I buy her things I know I would want for myself and she does the same. Anything she gives me instantly becomes cherishable.

David Yurman is for lovers. The cable bracelet (2)  is the first serious gift I got from my love before he was my husband. This gift took me by surprise when he handed it to me over dinner at Bouley. We’ve been married about 3 years.

The David Yurman link bracelet (1) was a gift from him the following Christmas. I love wearing them together. I mix them with some ummm… imitations. It’s too good and too bad that David Yurman is so widely copied… but no one (but me) ever knows which are real and which are not. He followed these up with the chain necklace (7), I wear it ALL the time with different pendants.

Finally I said, “I have enough David now, please give some other starving jewelry designer a chance.” He took the bait and gave me this Monica Castiglioni ring (3) for my next birthday. It’s magnificent. I crave MORE Monica…

The freshwater pearl bracelet (6) was a gift from one of my best friends. For a few years we were buying one another gifts from a jewelry designer we knew and adored. This bracelet became even more special when the designer died.

I have more. Much. More. Jewelry that is…