In all the history of U.S. business, few trade names have reached a loftier eminence than Tiffany's. For a century the name of Manhattan's famed jeweler has stood as a sterling symbol of quality and good taste. During all its 118 years it has been owned and managed by the families of Founder Charles Lewis Tiffany and an early partner, Silversmith Edward C. Moore. Thus, when Manhattan Real Estate Operator Irving Maidman and Bulova Watch Co. talked of taking over Tiffany's and replacing its genteel tradition with the code of the hard sell (TIME, Aug. 8), Tiffany's Fifth Avenue neighbors shuddered with well-bred distress.
The neighbor most concerned was Bonwit Teller's President Walter Hoving. As soon as he read about the plans of Maidman and Bulova, Department Storeman Hoving rode right out to Oyster Bay, L.I. to suggest to Tiffany President Louis de Bébian Moore that he take over. Hoving armed his offer with a pledge to preserve Tiffany's character and traditions, and leave management unchanged.
For Tom Thumb & Bride. There was a lot of Tiffany character and tradition to preserve. The company's elegant pattern was fashioned by Charles Tiffany, then a 25-year-old country storekeeper from Connecticut who borrowed $1,000 from his mill-owner father, and with a friend set up a fine stationery and pottery shop on lower Broadway. Though the partners took in only $4.98 in the first three days, sales picked up when they started importing Dresden porcelain and Parisian jewelry. Then, with political upheavals in France, diamond prices tumbled 50% in Europe, and Tiffany's bought all it could, including Marie Antoinette's diamond belt and $100,000 worth of jewels owned by Hungary's Prince Esterházy.
By choosing the best from the international jewel market, young Tiffany soon built up a worldwide reputation. The great, the gaudy and the merely rich flocked to Tiffany's. In 1850, when Jenny Lind first came to the U.S., one of her first stops was at Tiffany's, where she ordered a silver tankard for the captain of the ship that had brought her from Sweden. P. T. Barnum was so impressed that he commissioned Tiffany's to design a silver chariot as a wedding present for his two famous midgets, General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren.
After gold and silver were discovered in California, Telegraph Tycoon J.W. Mackay brought in three tons of silver from the Comstock lode and had Tiffany's make it into 1,000 pieces of table silver. One day President Lincoln dropped in to pick up a strand of pearls for the First Lady. Diamond Jim Brady earned his nickname with Tiffany diamonds, and an admirer of Sarah Bernhardt ordered for her a bicycle set with diamonds and rubies. Tiffany's even made horseshoes for the thoroughbreds of Tobacco Millionaire P. Lorillard. Steelmaker Charles Schwab once strolled into Tiffany's to buy a trinket for his wife, saw a 60-carat diamond pendant he liked, wrote out a check for $91,000 and strolled out with his gift.