Working condition.

History:Tiffany & Co. has long been renowned for its luxury goods, especially jewelry, and has sought to market itself as an arbiter of taste and style. Tiffany's designs, manufactures, and sells jewelry, watches, and crystal glassware. It also sells other timepieces, sterling silverware, china, stationery, writing instruments, fragrances, leather goods, scarves, and ties. Many of these products are sold under the Tiffany name, at Tiffany stores throughout the world. In 1837 Charles Lewis Tiffany and John F. Young opened Tiffany & Young, with $1,000 in backing from Tiffany's father. Located on Broadway opposite Manhattan's City Hall Park, this store sold stationery and a variety of "fancy goods," including costume jewelry. Unlike other stores of the time, Tiffany featured plainly marked prices that were strictly adhered to, sparing the customer the usual practice of haggling with the proprietor. Tiffany also departed from the norm by insisting on cash payment rather than extending credit or accepting barter. In 1841 Tiffany and Young took on another partner, J. L. Ellis, and the store became Tiffany, Young & Ellis. By 1845 the store was successful enough to discontinue paste and begin selling real jewelry, as well as the city's most complete line of stationery. Silverware was added in 1847. In addition to these main items, Tiffany's also sold watches and clocks, a variety of ornaments and bronzes, perfumes, and numerous other sundries. The new partner's capital enabled Young to go to Paris as a buyer, and he later established a branch store there. When the French monarchy was overthrown in 1848, Young purchased some of the crown jewels and also a bejeweled corset reputed to belong to Marie Antoinette. A shrewd publicist, Tiffany was quick to exploit this coup. He teamed up with P. T. Barnum, to their mutual profit, on a number of ventures and presented a gem-studded miniature silver-filigree horse and carriage as a wedding present to Tom Thumb and his bride. He introduced sterling silver to the United States in 1852, a year after contracting John C. Moore to produce silverware exclusively for Tiffany's. In 1853 he bought out his partners, and the firm became Tiffany & Co. Tiffany's prestige reached a new level when it won the gold medal for jewelry and grand prize for silverware at the Paris Exposition in 1878. Soon it was serving as a jeweler, goldsmith, and silversmith to most of the crowned heads of Europe. Its real clientele, however, came from the burgeoning ranks of America's wealthy, many with far more cash than taste. Tiffany's accommodated them all, no matter how ostentatious or whimsical their desires. The height (or depth) of vulgarity was reached when Diamond Jim Brady ordered, and Tiffany's duly produced, a solid gold chamber pot for Lillian Russell, with an eye peering up in the center of the bottom. It was estimated in 1887 that Tiffany's vaults held $40 million in precious stones. Among these was the largest flawless and perfectly colored canary diamond ever mined. This 128.5-carat "Tiffany Diamond," still held by the New York store, has been valued by the company at $22 million. In 1894 a factory was established in New Jersey in Forest Hill, which was later annexed by Newark, for the manufacture of silverware, stationery, and leather goods. Charles Tiffany died in 1902, leaving an estate estimated at $35 million. He was the only Tiffany to run the company.