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OVER THE COUNTER
scarce, as a result of the embargoes which two years later helped to provoke the War of 1812, but Isaac Marquand, soon joined by an English designer named Erastus Barton, found his little shop becoming the mecca of men and women bearing the names that have made New York famous—names still active on the Black, Starr & Gorham books. Two apprentices were brought into the firm. One of them was William Black, the other was Henry Ball. Ever since, through the various firm changes, their descendants have carried on the establishment which in 1876 became known as Black, Starr & Frost.
In the year 1831 in Providence a certain Jabez Gorham set himself up in business as a jeweler. Two years later he opened a retail branch of his business in downtown Man­hattan. As the social life of New York moved northward, Black, Starr & Frost moved with it, and Gorham followed suit. Successive homes and firm changes brought Black, Stair & Frost in 1912 into its Renaissance building at Fifth Avenue and 48th Street, and in 1924 the Gorham company followed to Fifth Avenue and 47th. Finally the two firms merged.
Tiffany's, not quite so old, is nevertheless also typical of how jewelry stores move with the times and remain in the hands of descendants of original founders. The new store of Tiffany's at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street is unquestion­ably the largest and most magnificent jewelry store in the world. Although Tiffany's is famous today for its diamonds, it was not concerned with them when the first Tiffany store opened in 1837. Young Charles Lewis Tiffany, who had borrowed $1000 from his father, a cotton goods merchant, and teamed up with a former schoolmate, John B. Young, was more interested in other items. The first store, at 259 Broadway, specialized in bric-a-brac, Chinese goods, then
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