Sadly, as most of you probably know, we lost Bobye last year.  I had hoped she would be a part of the book with many of her pieces included.  In fact there were supposed to be many submission pieces from across the collecting community, but Sharon chose another path after we had begun the work.  I really want to show some of her pieces here, and to showcase some of her favorite pieces across her whole jewelry collection, and am working with her daughter Karen's permission to pick some pieces.

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Bobye was important due to her contributions to jewelry collecting groups, online communities, and antique and jewelry dealers across the county, and world.  She was a personal friend of Eisenberg's long-time jewelry designer Ruth Kamke and talked for many years of doing her own Eisneberg book.  The book never happened for her but I am glad that she knew it was being done before she passed.

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I loved Bobye's love of Eisenberg; her collecting included all the years of their jewelry; she was an Eisenberg Ice© dealer, she knew about their clothing, accessories, and perfume, and she even met Karl Eisenberg.

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Sadly when I began helping Sharon with the book I had wanted to contact Bobye and talk to her about all the little "tidbits" she would have gathered through the years, and from Ruth, but Sharon asked me not to as she said she would be in contact with her and I honored that.  I should have contacted Bobye once Sharon had turned in the book, but I was quite ill for some time and simply missed my chance.  As I said, I've talked with her daughter Karen, and I have permission to use some of the photos, but I have hope she might be able to find the papers and research Bobye had gathered so I can get those "tidbits."

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There might not be such an avid bunch of Eisenberg collectors if not for Bobye's championing the designer through the years.  Her lifelong love of the designs had her supporting the jewelry even before the collecting craze that began in the 1980s.  She gathered her own display of pieces from contributors and her own collection which she shared online, and she was always willing to try and answer questions and provide guidance.  I'm hoping to carry that forward...if you have a piece shown on her site and would like it to move here, just let me know.

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I don't have her collection, or Sharon's, but I've studied the company for years, have a ton of research, and have "most" of the big questions answered.  So I will happily try and continue the answering of questions, and I'm always making myself lists of things to focus on until I get the information on various things.  Across the years of helping Sharon build her collection, and learning about their creations, I've gotten to the point that if you line up a bunch of photos I can usually tell you which ones show pieces likely to be "Unsigned" and which are definitely Eisenberg.

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Here's to Bobye...I really wish I'd gotten to know you...

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