The Elegant John Traina

John A.Traina, Jr. (1931-2011) has been described as “the gentleman you
wanted to be seated next to at dinner, a charming raconteur, elegantly
dressed, beautifully mannered and perennially interested.”
Born in San Francisco, John was the son of a homemaker who loved opera. His father’s candy
business was sold to See’s Candies just before the 1906 earthquake. He graduated from Stanford,
which his son, Todd Traina, said “gave our father the confidence to do business everywhere
from the ports of the Far East to the Vineyards of the North Bay of San Francisco.” He was a
long-time shipping executive, working
for both the American President Lines
and Prudential Cruises and Grace
Cruises. He started Pearl Cruises, the
first western cruise line to sail to China.
A man of many interests, John was also
a vintner, a film producer and an
entrepreneur.
The Elegant John Traina
A P O R T R A I T I N S T Y L E
His first wife, Dede Wilsey, explains,
“John Traina was a born collector. Because
he had excellent taste, he quickly learned
the difference between good and bad and
sought out excellence. His unfailing ability
to identify treasures provided both of us
with enormous pleasure.” He started
with armies of toy soldiers as a child and
grew into jewels and Fabergé as an
adult. He loved gems and he loved the
Dede Wilsey and John Traina
intricacies of workmanship in jewelry pieces. He was also fascinated by the design houses and
storied owners of great jewels. He shared his fascination by writing Extraordinary Jewels in 1994.
His collection of Fabergé cigarette cases was the largest in the world at one time and he lent

several to the 1996 Fabergé in America exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum of
Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Again, to share his passion, he authored The
Fabergé Case: From the Private Collection of John Traina in 1998.
His collection offered for sale here of dress sets and cufflinks, cigarette cases, watches and
Fabergé-like objects reflects, as Trevor Traina described his father, “an artistic person who lived
life with great flair and great style.” According to his daughter, Samantha Traina, her father’s
“sense of style and worldly elegance was legendary and innate.” To his second wife, Danielle Steel,
“there was no more dazzling sight than John Traina in white tie. John Traina in a dinner jacket was
Danielle Steel and John Traina
a close second.” John preferred to wear
the more formal dress sets for major
social events and the more whimsical for
more intimate occasions such as black tie
dinners at people’s homes. All the major
design houses are represented— diamonds
and colored stones from Harry Winston,
classics from Cartier and Van Cleef &
Arpels, Schlumberger sets from Tiffany &
Co., a menagerie of animals from David
Webb, ancient coins from Bulgari, Cole
Porter-inspired “Night and Day” from
Verdura, Venetian blackamoors from
Nardi, fluted turquoise from Taffin and
period sets from Fred Leighton. His
collection of watches, several of which are
offered in the December 6th sale of
Important Watches, are just as varied
including timepieces from Cartier, Patek
Philippe, Tiffany & Co., Rolex, Harry Winston, Versace and Verdura. His elegant cigarette cases,
were made much use of during the years that he smoked, and were still lovely to look at in
the years after he’d stopped. One is a pink and yellow gold basketweave box that used to
belong to Cole Porter. John loved provenance. And the Fabergé-inspired carved hardstone
animals, flowering pots and bell pushes are wonderfully decorative and reminders of John’s
affection for the real thing.
John was a wonderful father to all of his children, a wonderful husband and ex-husband, loyal
and caring and is greatly missed by all who knew him. He was a man who not only collected the
beautiful things being offered for sale today, but who, observes Dede Wilsey with great
affection, also “collected large quantities of friends around the world.”
The Traina family hopes that others will enjoy these precious objects as much as John did and
that, wherever they find themselves around the world, they will confer style and satisfaction to
new generations of collectors.
“ For me, collecting … is only half the fun. Researching each piece is of particular
interest to me — I love to investigate the styles of the makers, the pieces’ marks,
hallmarks, export marks, or lack of marks, all of which add to my curiosity. ”
— John Traina
John Traina with friends and at social occasions