Jewel Heist

Says the head of Manhattan jewelry-buying firm CIRCA, “When Madoff hit, then we started to get the calls,” and now the firm is busy collecting heirlooms from around the country to sell to international collectors. Says the company’s Palm Beach director, “Everybody down here has David Webb jewelry…and there’s all the inherited jewelry: things from the twenties that are from the great-grandmother. And then the grandmother’s things are from the forties and fifties, and now Mom is selling her things that are from the seventies.” She adds, “Most of them never thought about having to come up with money to pay regular expenses. I look upon it positively and say, ‘Be glad you had these things, and be glad you had great taste, so now you can sell it in order to continue.’” [New Yorker]