Tyler Moradof was five years old when he purchased his first piece of antique fine jewelry at auction. Granted, he was sitting on his father’s lap at the time, raising the auction paddle only when instructed, but the rush of being a successful bidder was something he would never forget.
His fascination with antique and vintage jewelry was nurtured from a young age by his grandmother Yafa, who cofounded Yafa Signed Jewels in New York with her son Maurice four decades ago. The business specializes in museum-quality signed jewelry from houses such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Harry Winston, as well as rare creations from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Yafa Signed Jewels excelled for decades as a wholesale-focused business, participating in more than a dozen international trade events annually and working with private clients to build their dream collections.
In the last five years, the company has undergone a significant transformation, opening a customer-facing flagship store in Palm Beach, Florida — “the Monaco of America,” according to Moradof — to better showcase its stock.
“During my junior year of college in 2020, everything shifted online due to the pandemic, so I moved to Palm Beach with my father and helped him open the location there,” he relates. “I was on the front desk doing sales, and then I would run and sit in the safe to take my Zoom classes.”
After graduating from George Washington University, Moradof was keen to channel all he had learned about innovation and entrepreneurship into his family business. “I learned a lot about how to take a preexisting business and elevate it. At this point in time, we have too much inventory and not enough space to showcase that in one location; hence, we are actively and aggressively looking for different locations domestically and internationally.”
Now 24, Moradof has formally worked for Yafa Signed Jewels for two years. Besides managing the Palm Beach retail team from a distance in New York, he is responsible for modernizing the company’s outlook.
“I was drawn to the business for a variety of reasons,” he explains. “There aren’t many industries where you can be in Geneva in November, Hong Kong in March, and Monaco in July.” As for the future, he says, “my long-term dream is to have multiple locations. I don’t need to be a Graff or a Van Cleef with 50 or 100 stores; I’d rather have six strong locations in the best cities in the world. That’s a lot more rewarding to me.”
Main image: Tyler Moradof. (Yafa Signed Jewels)
