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?“I like them,” Sheryl began. “But I was after a green background.”
?Sheryl pulled her phone out and showed Norm the photo.
?“This is the type I’m talking about,” she admitted.
?Norm gave a whistle of appreciation and took the phone to look at it closely. “That looks like jade. No wait, green jadeite.”
?“Really?”
?I looked over Sheryl’s shoulder and glanced at the photo. She really had gotten a good shot.
?“Yeah, you see the depth of the color and the transparency?” Norm said. “To be honest, though, it isn’t really a cameo.”
?“I don’t understand,” Sheryl questioned.
?“I thought a cameo was just a silhouette on stone,” I added.
?Norm reached into the open bin and took out a display board with the more expensive choices. There were cameo pins of different sizes. He indicated one near the top: it was a pink woman in a dress on a white background.
?“You see how the background is a different color? That’s a true cameo. The art is to have stone—usually agate—with layers of color, and the silhouette is a relief that is a contrasting hue from the background, as it is in a different layer of the stone.”
?He then pointed at his table where he’d set up several tools. There was a small stone held by a vise that suspended it up so the front of the stone faced out. A large magnifying lens with a light, suspended by a metal arm was aimed to enlarge the surface he worked on. A silhouette was half-carved into the surface, and you could see the background color being revealed as the layers were stripped away. Several tools lay on the table, including a small battery-powered Dremel and something resembling a dentist’s drill.
?“Like this, see?” He pointed at the piece in the vise. Then he indicated the photo on Sheryl’s phone. “That’s merely a relief, but the workmanship is very good—”
?“Do you have anything like it?” Sheryl said.
?Norm gave a derisive snort. “I wish. To be honest, I wouldn’t bring something this expensive to an event like this.”
?“Why not?” Sheryl wondered.
?Norm shrugged. “Nobody has the money for a piece like this at a fan-con. I bring the less expensive stuff that people will shell out for.”
?“So,” she said, “how much would this go for?”
?Norm looked at the phone again.
?“If that setting is gold, which it appears to be—anywhere from two to five, if that’s really jade.”
?“Hundred?” I asked.
?“Thousand, depending on the artist,” Norm said. “But I don’t know. It’s hard to tell in the photo, but from the color, it might just be Imperial Jade. If it is, you are talking forty grand.”
?I gave a quick, impressed whistle.
?“Well thank you for your help,” Sheryl said.
?“Here, take this!” He extracted a business card from his pocket. “If you’re serious, I might be able to track something like that down for you.”
?I looked over to see Cliff walking over with two cardboard cups—I assumed coffee. However, he was talking and smiling with none other than Hypno, the woman from John Stewart’s booth.
?They were both tall, and instead of the dour look she always gave me, she was smiling and possibly laughed at something he said.
?She gave a squeeze to Cliff’s arm and wandered off, her face becoming hard as she strode away.
?“That would be great,” Sheryl said to Norm. “I’ll call you.”
?“Thanks, Norm,” I said, as Cliff wandered up.
