Exciting News about the Personal Collection of Mr DeLizza

Mr DeLizza's Father hand made this crown for a Madonna Statue in Brooklyn One-Of-A-Kind

Four years ago Cheryl Kilmer was asked by Mr DeLizza to start to sell of some of his personal collection of jewelry. For those that don’t know Cheryl Kilmer was the first person to put together the connection between the elusively tagged Juliana Jewelry and the jewelry manufacturer DeLizza and Elster. (The full story can be read in Mr DeLizza’s book on page 157). Since that time Cheryl has become a close personal friend of the DeLizza’s. She was the logical person to be asked to take on this task. Cheryl then listed the first few pieces of the jewelry for sale stating they were from his personal collection. 

Leaf Shape Brooch

Now steps in our next major player in this story. Jan Romanchik one of the most prolific collectors of Juliana Jewelry. She sees this information and contacts Cheryl asking about this jewelry. She finds out the large scope of this jewelry and knows it can not just be sold off piece by piece without it’s story being told. So she steps in and purchased most of the collection of Mr DeLizza’s jewelry. 

Jan enjoys this jewelry for a while. She then starts to look for a way to have the story of this jewelry told. She talks with people about a book but could not get the project off the ground due to books declining popularity and people preferring their information to be on line. Her and I talk and come up with the plan to share the story of these jewels and share some of them for sale via a weekly blog. 

This blog will traverse through the history of DeLizza and Elster. The jewelry will be presented as an eye into the history of their jewelry. Today we will start at the beginning as they started with all clear rhinestone jewelry. We must remember that clear rhinestone jewelry remained as a marketable line of jewelry for them through the full time frame of their jewelry design. So not all the clear jewelry shown here is from the 1950’s. 


An example of the later clear designs are this necklace, flat bracelet and pierced earring design. 

Pierced Earring Set

This pretty leaf shaped brooch is from 1951 and the design book drawing is shown in Mr DeLizza’s book on page 29. 

This large wire spray pendant necklace is very similar to a brooch design shown on page 29 of Mr DeLizza’s book and shown as dating to 1952. 

Wire Spray Necklace

Each week when I put out the next blog post I will be offering some of the pieces from collection for purchase. Please visit my store https://www.ourvintagerosejewelry.com/shop/MrDeLizza/18 to purchase. There will be more items than are shown in the blog post. So be sure to check them all out. All will have a place in this visual history guide as I will also be publishing companion imageevent albums showing all the pieces. Some of the pieces available will be examples of items that were sold in the open line. Others will be pieces sold to certain companies. Others will be designs that were not really sold and are basically salesman examples or prototypes.  

Jan also included with the jewelry some signed Thank You cards for the purchase of the jewelry.   These cards are hand signed by Mr DeLizza. I have a limited amount of them.  For each person that purchases 10 items I will send one of these Thank You notes, while the supply lasts. The items do not have to be purchased all at one time. I will keep track of each persons purchases.