Tiffany Studios Desk Sets and Antique Desk Accessories: What They're Worth

Tiffany Studios desk sets are some of the most collected decorative metalwork in America. Here is how to read the marks, spot a fake and know what your desk pieces are worth.

SebastianCharles Auctions

A heavy bronze inkwell, a letter rack and a pair of blotter ends can look like old office clutter. If the bottoms are stamped "Tiffany Studios New York," they are something else. Tiffany Studios desk sets are some of the most collected decorative metalwork in America, and they turn up in estates more often than you would think. Here is how to tell what you have and what it is worth.

What a Tiffany Studios desk set is

Tiffany Studios, the New York company Louis Comfort Tiffany founded, made bronze desk accessories in the early 1900s alongside its famous lamps. They were sold piece by piece in matching patterns, so families built their sets over time. A full set could include:

• Inkwells and inkstands
• Blotter ends and a rocker blotter
• A letter rack and letter clip
• A pen tray and letter opener
• A stamp box, utility box and notepad holder
• A calendar frame, picture frame, letter scale and bookends

An 18 piece Zodiac set offered at Sotheby's in 2026 included almost all of these.

The patterns

Tiffany made desk sets in many named patterns. These are the ones you are most likely to see:

• Zodiac. Gilt bronze with the signs of the zodiac in roundels.
• Grapevine and Pine Needle. Pierced bronze over green or white slag glass.
• Abalone. Gilt bronze set with iridescent abalone shell.
• Bookmark, Louis XVI, Heraldic and Venetian. Gilt bronze patterns with molded decoration.
• American Indian, Ninth Century and Byzantine. Patterns with bold geometric and stylized designs, some set with glass jewels.

Values swing widely by pattern, piece and condition, so do not assume one Tiffany piece is worth the same as another.

What our Tiffany Studios desk pieces have sold for

• 3 piece Tiffany Studios Grapevine desk set: $750
• Pair of Tiffany Studios Sphinx paperweights: $850
• Tiffany Studios Lioness paperweight: $650
• Tiffany Studios Lion paperweight: $500
• Tiffany Studios Heraldic utility box: $450
• Tiffany Studios Pine Needle box: $425
• Tiffany Studios American Indian bronze inkwell: $325
• Tiffany Studios Zodiac letter holder: $300

Larger matched sets bring more. At Rago in 2022, a nine piece Tiffany Studios Louis XVI desk set sold for $2,600, and a group of Ninth Century pieces sold for $2,375. And if the desk set comes with a Tiffany lamp, that changes the picture. We sold a Tiffany Studios Turtle Back Zodiac desk lamp for $6,250. See our guide to consigning a Tiffany Studios lamp for more.

How to read the marks

Turn each piece over. Genuine pieces are stamped on the underside with "TIFFANY STUDIOS NEW YORK" and a model number. The model number tells a specialist the exact form and pattern. Collectors use reference books like Tiffany Desk Treasures by George Kemeny and Donald Miller to match them.

How to spot a fake

Tiffany desk pieces have been copied and recast for decades. Watch for these signs:

• Soft details. Recast pieces lose the crisp edges of the original casting.
• Modern hardware. Nuts, bolts or threaded rods used as hinge pins.
• A rough, hollow underside instead of a clean, finished base.
• A metal liner in an inkwell that should have a glass one.
• A flat, muddy, even brown finish instead of a natural aged patina.
• A mark in the wrong place. Genuine marks are on the underside. A Tiffany mark struck crookedly on the side of a piece is a warning sign.
• Gray metal showing through. Genuine pieces are bronze, which shows a copper or yellow tone where the finish wears. Gray means spelter or iron.

Other desk sets worth a look

Tiffany Studios is the top name, but plenty of other desk pieces sell well:

• Sterling silver inkwells. We sold a Garrard & Co. sterling silver inkwell for $1,300 and a Dominick & Haff Japonesque sterling inkwell for $850. A 19th century Tiffany & Co. sterling inkstand sold at Bonhams for $2,000.
• Art pottery and porcelain inkwells. We sold a ceramic inkwell by the French potter Émile Decoeur, decorated with children and frogs, for $3,200.
• Arts and Crafts copper. Roycroft and Dirk van Erp made hammered copper desk pieces with steady collector demand.
• Heintz Art Metal. Sterling silver overlaid on bronze, marked with the company's patent. These usually sell at more modest prices.
• Jennings Brothers and Bradley & Hubbard. These companies made bronze desk sets in a similar style. They are nice pieces in their own right, but they are not Tiffany and are priced accordingly.

Do not polish it

This is the most important thing in this post. The brown or green patina on old bronze is part of its value. Never use metal polish, cleaners or solvents on a Tiffany desk piece. A polished piece can lose much of what collectors would have paid. If a piece is dusty, leave it that way and let the buyer decide.

Also keep every part together. Glass liners, slag glass panels and small hinged lids matter. A missing inkwell liner or a cracked glass panel lowers the price.

Get your desk set valued

Lay the pieces out together and take one group photo. Then photograph each piece from the top and the bottom so the marks and model numbers show. Send them through our free estimate form. Sebastian reviews every inquiry personally and will tell you what you have and whether it sells best as a set or as single pieces. If you also have fountain pens from the same desk, read our guide to fountain pens worth money at auction.