Sale Is a First for Beverly Hills Tiffany’s

It took Beverly Arnstein all of 14 minutes to buy a pair of diamond and gold ear clips reduced from $10,350 to $8,450.

“After all my years of living here,” she laughed, “I’ve never even been in Tiffany’s before.”

“Well, welcome, madame,” Tiffany’s retail manager Alain Breitling said.

It was not your ordinary shopping day at Tiffany & Co. in Beverly Hills.

Monday was the first day of the store’s first sale since it opened 21 years ago on Wilshire Boulevard as an outpost of the flagship Tiffany’s in New York.

Diamonds weren’t the only bargain to be had. Elsa Peretti-designed gold “zodiac cuffs” were slashed from $4,000 to $2,500. Angela Cummings’ triple-strand turquoise bead choker was marked down from $4,250 to $1,995. A man’s gold Piaget watch was selling for $5,000, half the original price. And then there were the items reminiscent of another era, such as sterling silver silent butlers, half price at $375, and gold champagne swizzle sticks, once $95, now $50.

Most Expensive

The most inexpensive sale item was a leather purse mirror, designed by Peretti and carrying a price tag of $5, reduced from $20. For those people with more money to spend, the costliest sale item was a pair of pear-shaped emerald and diamond earrings originally selling for $295,000, now $225,000.

The sale was a subdued affair. There were no crowds.

“I even got a parking place,” Beverly Arnstein remarked.

And inside the jewelry emporium, there was no tugging and pulling of pearls. No frenzy over the flatware. Shoppers leaned over locked glass counters and quietly scrutinized the contents.

The first time there had been a publicly announced and advertised sale in Tiffany’s 147-year history was a few months after Walter Hoving led an investor group in the acquisition of the company in 1955.

In January of this year, a second sale was held in the Fifth Avenue store. In two weeks, $3.5 million worth of price-reduced merchandise was sold.

Most of the on-sale merchandise in Beverly Hills was left over from the New York sale and additional sales in Tiffany’s Chicago and San Francisco branches.

The price-slashing events are all part of the retrenchment of the jewelry concern, which was sold by its parent company, Avon, last October and purchased by an investor group led by Tiffany’s Chairman William R. Chaney.

“What we’re saying is now that we’re privately owned again, our intention is to make a new and exclusive design statement,” Tiffany’s divisional vice president Roberta Herbison said.

“I was dreaming about this sale,” said one customer, Maryann Mandell, who purchased a Battersea box, a crystal cream-and-sugar set and a Tiffany clock, all discounted.

“I’m a Tiffany’s regular,” she said. “I already have at least eight clocks in my apartment.”