Horace Dodge

Famous 1920s Steam Yacht for Sale at $70 Million

For $70 million you can be the proud new owner of the SS Delphine, one of the last great private steamships of the 1920s, built for motorcar magnate Horace Dodge. The 257-ft. yacht was launched in 1921, fitted out with an interior by Tiffany & Co. and every conceivable luxury a gentleman could wish for on the high seas. Constructed at the Great Lakes Engineering Works in Michigan, she was pressed into service during World War II as the flagship for Admiral Ernest Joseph King, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Navy, and Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt are said to have met aboard her prior to convening the Yalta Conference with Stalin in 1945. In the decades following she fell into disrepair until a European clothing mogul had her fully restored to former glory, including the steam engines, several years ago at a cost of $60 million. Along with accommodations for 26 guests and 28 crew members, there's a music salon, cinema, fitness center, spa, sauna, smoking room, swimming pool and original fixtures like the telegraph machine in the mahogany pilothouse.

[via Duncan Quinn]

Tags: Delphine, Horace Dodge, HoraceDodge, Michigan, SS Delphine, SsDelphine, steamer, steamship, Tiffany, Tiffany Co., TiffanyCo., Winston Churchill, WinstonChurchill, yacht

Mysterious Cartier Pearls Linked to Catherine the Great

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Jewelry, Auctions

A mysterious pearl necklace that may have once belonged to Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, will be auctioned off by Bonhams in New York in December. Automotive billionaire Horace Elgin Dodge purchased the necklace from Cartier in Paris in 1920 for his wife Anna Thomson Dodge at the astonishing price of $825,000 - about $8 million in today's dollars.

The original Cartier invoice states that the "five row pearl necklace, consisting of 389 pearls weighing 4305 grains" was accompanied by an "enamel clasp representing Catherine, Empress of Russia" and "two diamond alternate clasps." Several newspaper accounts from the '20s suggested that the pearls did indeed once belong to Catherine; Anna Thomson Dodge's heirs maintain that Horace bought the pearls from Cartier on that basis.

Now reduced to three strands comprised of 224 pearls and two Cartier diamond clasps, the necklace (above) is estimated at $500,000- $700,000 - a hefty sum, to be sure, but far less than Horace originally paid. The reason for the depreciation has less to do with the reduction in strands than with changing fashion and an evolving jewelry marketplace.

In 1920, before the advent of cultured pearls, they were exceedingly rare and valuable, much more so than diamonds. Nowadays pearls have become more commonplace while diamonds are more precious, though a true connoisseur recognizes the value of the Dodge necklace, which is made of all natural pearls.

Gallery: The Dodge Pearls