Retailing: Sale af Cartier's

What the Rothschilds are to banking, the Carders have been to jewelry. Descended from a metal craftsman who worked for Louis XV, the Carder family opened its first jewelry store in Paris in 1847, by the early years of this century had prospered sufficiently to set younger sons up in business in London and New York. Cartier's of Manhattan, which has been corporately independent of its Paris and London cousins since 1919, is more conservative than Tiffany's and more luxurious than Van Cleef & Arpels. Equally famed for custom-crafted goods at extravagantly high prices ($1,000,000 for a 107-carat emerald necklace) and a client list that concentrates on the upper registers, the U.S. Cartier's commemorates the shop visits of royalty with plaques at its entrance. In its handsome Fifth Avenue mansion, salesmen never push the merchandise; they discreetly "suggest."

Last week Cartier's of Manhattan announced its biggest sale yet. At a price estimated to run between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000, a specially formed investment syndicate purchased from the Cartier family a major share of the store's stock. With the traditional reserve of the society jeweler, Carder's would not discuss terms of the deal, would only say that Claude Cartier, 37, a nephew of the founder of Cartier's of Manhattan, will stay on as president of the company.

It did not take a jeweler's eyepiece, however, to see that Cartier's might be in for a change of character. Biggest member of the share-buying syndicate apparently was Ramco Enterprises, Inc. Ramco, which also owns a shopping center and a textile mill, is headed by Ira Guilden, 66, a smooth-running Wall Street operator who was once vice president of Bulova Watch. Another member of the syndicate—along with two unnamed charity trusts—was Edward G. Goldstein, a well-heeled Bostonian. Goldstein is the financial power behind Marcus & Co., which operates the jewelry departments in 20 Gimbel Bros, department stores, and also owns major interests in two other Fifth Avenue jewelers—Tecla Pearls, Inc. and Black, Starr & Frost.