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" There is nothing subtle about Seaman Schepps&amp;#039;s jewelry. Cabochon emeralds the size of jelly beans. A bracelet of carved amethyst snuff bottles twinkling with diamonds. Ear clips of coral koi fish swimming through turquoise-and-pearl &amp;quot;foam.&amp;quot; The pieces burst with color and captivate with bold ingenuity, reflecting the extroverted charm and vitality of the man who created them. &amp;quot;He had a Damon Runyonesque quality about him,&amp;quot; recalls his granddaughter Amanda Vaill, who, with Janet Zapata, wrote the 2004 book Seaman Schepps: A Century of New York Jewelry Design. &amp;quot;He was a colorful, paradoxical, rough-edged character with an amazing eye. He could see the potential of something that could be made beautiful.&amp;quot; A self-made entrepreneur from Manhattan&amp;#039;s Lower East Side tenements, who reputedly was named after the Seamen&amp;#039;s Bank for Savings, Schepps blithely ignored the tenets of fine jewelry design. He mixed humble with haute\u2014pink tourmalines and diamonds, sandalwood and gold, seashells and sapphires\u2014and used flawed stones whose imperfections captured his imagination. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Appraisal: Seaman Schepps.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;He really was a magician with materials,&amp;quot; says David Revere McFadden, chief curator of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, which mounted an exhibition of Schepps&amp;#039;s work in 2004. &amp;quot;His designs are not about diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, although he certainly used them, but rather about transforming the unexpected into something of extraordinary visual power and beauty.&amp;quot; Schepps rose to fame in the 1930s when his Madison Avenue boutique became a favorite haunt of caf\u00E9 society. His unconventional jewelry exuded cosmopolitan style and joie de vivre, not stuffy, old-moneyed refinement. Fashionable, independent women couldn&amp;#039;t get enough of his chunky bracelets and brooches made of semiprecious stones and 14-karat gold, which were more affordable than diamond and platinum bijoux from Cartier. Why wear demure pearl earrings when you can sport clusters of colorful gemstones? And what better accessory for hoisting a cocktail at the Stork Club than a huge gold cuff blazing with sapphires and diamonds? His high-wattage designs scintillated across the pages of fashion magazines and gleamed at the wrists and earlobes of Coco Chanel, Katharine Hepburn, and the Duchess of Windsor. For heiress Doris Duke he designed a grape-cluster brooch of sapphires accented with diamond-and-emerald leaves. His witty Mousetrap bracelet, made of large gold links held together by ruby-and-diamond &amp;quot;springs,&amp;quot; was a favorite of Blanche Knopf, wife of the publisher, who wore them three at a time on her wrist. Fashion hounds weren&amp;#039;t his only fans. Fidel Castro bought a bracelet for his sister (with traveler&amp;#039;s checks), and Andy Warhol amassed a collection, including a bracelet of emeralds, rock crystal, and diamonds from the 1940s. Schepps, who dropped out of school at 14, went to California and opened a shop there in his early 20s, before returning to New York in 1921. He had no formal training in jewelry design. His method was to assemble stones on dental wax\u2014a small aquamarine here, a large sapphire there, a smattering of diamonds in between\u2014so that pieces often have a spontaneous, collage-like feel. He had a painter&amp;#039;s eye for color, pairing coral beads and cabochon emeralds in a necklace, or combining vivid, semiprecious stones resembling hard candy in a flamboyant bracelet aptly called Rio. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Appraisal: Seaman Schepps.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;He would haunt used-jewelry stores on 47th Street and pick up odds and ends, like broken bracelets from some Russian \u00E9migr\u00E9 countess down on her luck,&amp;quot; Vaill recalls. &amp;quot;The joke around the office was that there were bits of Faberg\u00E9 in some Schepps pieces.&amp;quot; His inspirations came from everything\u2014a butterfly, a child&amp;#039;s drawing of a chicken\u2014but mostly it was the raw materials that excited him. He saw magic in the commonplace. Turbo shells were transformed into fanciful earrings encircled with gold wire and capped with colorful stones, becoming one of his most renowned designs. Sandalwood and ebony morphed into stunning wood-and-gold link bracelets; a chunk of rock crystal became a knockout ring. Clients would bring him their old-fashioned jewelry to remake into pieces with more pizzazz. After Schepps&amp;#039;s death in 1972 at the age of 91, his daughter Patricia Vaill continued to make jewelry until 1992 when she sold the business. Now located on Park Avenue (with branches in Palm Beach and Nantucket), the company references its vast archives\u2014more than 5,000 renderings and 650 molds\u2014to reissue and update Schepps&amp;#039;s designs as well as to create original pieces in his style. &amp;quot;His jewelry looks like no one else&amp;#039;s,&amp;quot; says co-owner Jay Bauer. &amp;quot;People see it and they know immediately that it&amp;#039;s Seaman Schepps.&amp;quot; His vintage pieces are brisk sellers. Recently, Sotheby&amp;#039;s sold a circa-1950 black-opal-and-diamond necklace and bracelet for $47,500 and a suite of turquoise jewelry from 1950 for $26,250. &amp;quot;Schepps had a less-precious flair than [Fulco di] Verdura, who used much better stones,&amp;quot; says Robin Wright, a jewelry specialist for Sotheby&amp;#039;s. &amp;quot;But Schepps&amp;#039;s jewelry isn&amp;#039;t so astronomically expensive that you are afraid to wear it every day.&amp;quot; Or at least on those occasions when only something delightfully conspicuous will do. Where To Find It Seaman Schepps carries reissued and new pieces. The following dealers offer vintage jewels. And major auction houses, such as Sotheby&amp;#039;s, also feature his pieces in their jewelry sales. \u2022 1stdibs.com \u2022 Hoffman-Gampetro, New York City, 212-758-1252 \u2022 Neil Marrs, New York City, 917-603-7402; neilmarrs.com Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Appraisal: Seaman Schepps.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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