Horological Meandering

I recall a gift which my sister once gave me: she most graciously gave me a pair of actual Tiffany sterling silver cufflinks, blue box and all, and told me that they were meant to be engraved with my monogram, as a very personal gift, but she left it up to me to have them engraved.

Wanting to complete the gift as my sister had intended, I dutifully went to the real Tiffany & Co, presented my Tiffany (trademark) sterling cufflinks to the sales associate and said I wanted them engraved. The sales associate was thrilled, and pulled out a binder of engraving options. After looking through the entire catalog, I selected the one I liked best. The associate told me, "Wonderful selection... that will cost $125.00." I said "What? Isn't the engraving including in the already purchased price of the Tiffany engravable cufflinks?"... "But of course not."... "But why is it so expensive?"... "Well, you selected one of our finest hand-engraved styles. The machine-engraved styles are much less expensive."

I pondered this for a few moments, and said "Fine. $125.00. I'll do it to make my sister happy."

The associate then said "That will be $250.00"

"What? I thought you just said it was $125.00"... "Well, that is the cost per cufflink. You want them both engraved, don't you?"

After a few more moments, I sighed and said, "Oh well. Okay. It will make my sister happy."

All to say, this gift of cufflinks from my sister was the most personally expensive gift that I have ever had the honor of receiving.

Now, it seems that my old Tiffany gift pales in comparison (in personal cost) to the "gift" that the lucky 170 recipients of the Tiffany Blue 5711 shall receive from Audrey Hepburn's favorite place on Fifth Avenue! [Yes, I know that the 5711s will have some re-sale value, unlike my cufflinks...]

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