Jeweler Walter Lampl, an example of the American dream, was born in New York in 1895, was a newspaper boy. But as a teenager, he began to make watch chains and key rings himself.
Today, a tiny gold pendant for a bracelet made by him costs about 670-700 US dollars. Silver ones cost about 45-55 US dollars.
There are also rarities – like a soda machine with mechanics. A miniature pendant for a bracelet made by Walter made of gold.
But the main rarity was a Japanese jewelry collection, which included Chinese temple gates, a Japanese groom and bride (two paired brooches, clips for fur and a coat), and a Big Geisha. They were patented on May 7, 1940. I give one of three patents below.
The cost of a Japanese (sometimes called Chinese) pair on the antique market today ranges from 850 US dollars to 2 thousand, depending on the state of preservation.
But the most interesting thing is that Walter adored mechanisms and created unique tiny pendants in the form of various devices, from a film projector to barrel organs. They moved. So Walter introduced the fashion for mechanics in jewelry. Examples of his patents are below.
Walter released hearts for all the months with flowers according to the zodiac, based on his wife’s sketches. And then he received the rights to present bracelets with keychains as souvenirs at the World Fair and on TV shows as prizes.
And if he developed the mechanics himself, then the designs for the brooches and pendants were invented by his wife Sylvia and the women who worked in his factories – often these were Jewish families that Walter took out of Germany during the Holocaust
He also came up with a special pendant to support the British army and donated it to the British military support fund in 1939, there was even a miniature flag on the box with the mechanism.
Walter was loved by all the newspaper boys in New York, because in the cold he bought up all the newspaper editions, just so that the children would not freeze on the streets – he remembered his hungry childhood very well and how he froze, selling newspapers…
He died in the midst of the Christmas holiday at his company on December 25, 1945. His wife and son continued his business, but their ideas were no longer enough for more than replicating pendants for bracelets. They say that his talent as an inventor of miniature mechanisms in jewelry and his generous soul, his defense of the poor and humiliated, lived long after his death. He was 50. And the last masterpieces that Walter made himself are almost 74 years old and more.
