Tag Archives: jewellery

Meet the jewellery team – Helen & Sammantha

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Profile – Helen Doyle

Jewellery, Handbag and Wristwatch Specialist

Helen has a wealth of knowledge and over 20 years of experience in the industry. From a family of art and antique dealers and auctioneers, she earned her gemmology diploma from The Gemmological Association of Great Britain.

Experience

She joined the jewellery department at Bonham’s Auctioneers before moving on to lead roles at various asset lenders in London and New York. As her career has progressed, she has also become a specialist in valuing designer handbags and watches. She has been lucky enough to value some exceptionally important pieces throughout her career.

Passionate about keeping up to date with market trends, she prides herself on offering an excellent level of customer service and has a remarkable eye for detail.

About

Helen now lives in Cheltenham working as a valuer and running her own business selling antique jewellery and designer handbags. She loves exploring antique fairs and auctions for new stock. In her spare time, she enjoys restringing pearls and taking her cocker spaniel Ruby for walks in the Cotswolds.

Spot-light

Helen’s favourite piece to value was a rare solid silver Hermes Kelly handbag. Helen loves antique Cartier, Van Cleef and pretty Victorian rings.

Covering

  • South West
  • East & West Midlands
  • Wales

Profile – Sammantha Maclachlan

Jewellery & Wristwatch Specialist

Sammantha Maclachlan FGA DGA MJVA MIRV is an independent registered valuer specialising in jewellery and watches. With over 18 years of experience in the luxury jewellery industry, she has gained valuable expertise with brands such as Mikimoto, Rolex and Patek Philippe.

Professional Qualifications

A senior accredited gemologist, Sammantha is a fellow of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain and a holder of the diamond and gemmology diploma. Sammantha prides herself in offering the highest level of customer service in a professional and friendly manner.

  • Fellow of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain (FGA)
  • Diamond diploma from the Gemmological Association of Great Britain (DGA)
  • Member of the National Association of Jewellers Institute of Registered Valuers (MIRV)
  • Member of the Jewellery Valuers Association (MJVA)
  • Applied Jewelry Professional from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA AJP)
  • Professional Jewellers Diploma from the NAJ (PJ Dip)
  • Cultured pearl specialist from Cultured Pearl Association (CPAA)
  • Diamond grader with the International Gemmological Institute Antwerp (IGI)
  • Certificate of Appraisal Theory from NAJ (CAT)

About

In her spare time, Sammantha enjoys photomicrography, which is the art of photographing gemstones and their inclusions under high magnification.

Spot-light

Sammantha’s favourite piece valued is a pair of large pink diamond earrings from the since-closed Argyle Mine in Australia. A true rarity of the jewellery world.

Covering

  • Scotland & Borders

Meet the jewellery team – Aurélia & Jenny

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Profile – Aurélia Turrall

Jewellery Specialist

Aurélia has over 20 years’ experience in the auction industry. After graduating from King’s College London with BA Hons, she started her career in Business Development and Client Services at Christie’s and Sotheby’s Paris. She went on to obtain her Graduate Gemmologist degree from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). Relocating from Paris to London, Aurélia joined the Jewellery department at Bonhams, dealing with client valuations and auction preparations.

Experience

Aurélia has a Bachelor of Arts degree from King’s College London and a Baccalaureate in Economics and Literature. She speaks English, French being her native language, and some Spanish. Aurelia has also had experience of working with specialist lenders Borro and working for SYMEV (French Association of Auctioneers) in Paris where she was Head of Communications.

About

In her spare time, Aurélia writes feature length screenplays and children books. Being able to value clients’ jewellery is what she loves to do and she has been privileged to handle some unique pieces.

Spot-light

Aurélia’s favourite piece valued was an Art Déco pigeon blood ruby and diamond three-stone ring by Cartier.

Covering

  • London, Greater London
  • East of England
  • South West, South East
  • Guernsey & Jersey

Profile – Jenny Knott

Silver & Jewellery Specialist

Jenny has been working in the Silver and Jewellery industry for over 35 years. She is a graduate of Reading University, where she gained a BA Hons in English literature. She joined Bonham’s auctioneers in Knightsbridge as a post-graduate in the silver, jewellery, clocks and watches departments, specialising in silver and jewellery. Jenny soon rose to the position of deputy head of the department.

Experience

Her career has seen her run Bonham’s highly successful Gentlemen’s sales. Jenny worked with the John Lewis Partnership for 25 years, supplying them with antique jewellery for their retail sales. She also enjoyed working with Bloomingdales in the United States for many years, supplying cufflinks and gentlemen’s accessories. Both these roles involved training their staff.

Furthermore, she worked with the Buckingham Palace team and supplied their store, lectured extensively in the UK (including lectures to NAFAS and the National Association of Jewellers) and in the States on her specialist areas. Jenny has also co-curated a cufflink exhibition with The Goldsmiths Company. She is highly experienced in insurance and probate work and continues alongside doing valuations, supplying antiques, particularly wine related items, to the Rothschild Waddesdon Trust and National Trust.

About

Jenny is very sporty and loves the outdoors. In her spare time, you’re likely to find her out and about, walking her dog, playing tennis, cycling, or skiing down a mountain.

Spot-light

Jenny’s favourite things to value are quirky or unusual antique pieces, both silver and jewellery. She also loves wonderful enamel work be it Fabergé, Scandinavian enamel or French guilloché enamelling.

Covering

  • London, Greater London
  • East of England
  • South West, South East
  • Oxfordshire & Warwickshire

Fluctuations of the market in the last few years

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As with every market, jewellery prices will inevitably fluctuate, though I can’t say I’ve seen the price of precious stones go down in the last few years. Seen as a commodity by some and as a treasure by others, it’s important to understand the cost of remaking a unique piece of jewellery. It will be dictated by global demand for diamond (or other precious stones), gold, silver, palladium and other alloy metals and stones.

High worldwide demand for palladium – due to its key importance in the development of renewable energy – inevitably increases the cost of gold – based items of jewellery. Because of its softness, gold used in jewellery is mixed with alloys. Alloys are other metals, such as zinc, copper, nickel, iron, cadmium, aluminium, silver, platinum and palladium. This mix then alters its appearance, hardness and melting point. Palladium is a chosen favourite as an alloy metal. At today’s value, the scrap value for palladium is £41/gram compared to £21.50/gram for platinum, which then impacts gold jewellery pieces.

As an example, this 9ct gold gate bracelet with heart locket was estimated £70-£100 by Bonhams in 2005. Today’s estimate would most likely be £200-£300.

Designer pieces with diamonds are affected in a similar manner.

This diamond and gold bracelet by Kutchinsky (above) sold at Bonhams for £1,553 (including premium) in 2005.

A similar item by the same designer (below) sold for £2,550 (including premium) in 2019.

For insurance purpose, the above bracelet would receive a value of £8,000 as at 2022.

Coloured stones have also seen an increase in price.

This emerald and diamond cluster ring is set with an emerald weighing approximately 5.20 carats and approximately 1.15 carats of diamonds. It was previously valued at £42,000 in 2011 for insurance purpose. Eleven years on, it is now valued at £65,000.

One could try to apply generic inflation percentages as a tool to update valuations, however this is incorrect and will often lead to your jewellery being under or overvalued. In the case of the above ring, a formula trying to reflect inflation would be detrimental to the value of the ring.

Valuing jewellery should always be case by case, as some signed vintage pieces will increase over the years, but not at the same rate as precious gemstones for example. The market for an Art Déco Cartier wristwatch (as below), though rare, has a smaller market of potential buyers and sellers. Comparatively to coloured stones, the value for this wristwatch will never exceed a certain plateau. This watch currently retails for £35,000.

A similar wristwatch by Cartier (below) sold at Bonhams in 2017 for £16,250 (including premium) and would have most likely received an insurance value of £23,000.

Diamonds on the other hand continue to escalate at a steady pace.

These diamonds earstuds (above) are 4.01 carats and 4.04 carats respectively. They were valued for insurance purposes at £300,000 in 2012 and are now valued at £360,000.

The same applies to contemporary signed pieces such as the Alhambra collection by Van Cleef & Arpels.

The mother-of-pearl Alhambra necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels was sold for £9,950 less than ten years ago and now retails for £15,800. A steady increase reflecting world demand for durable contemporary and elegant jewellery by a reputable designer.

The jewellery market is not exempt from worldwide affairs and economic changes, but it will always have an added unquantifiable value: emotional value. Jewellery can be seen as an investment, but it still predominantly remains a purchase of pleasure and luxury, whichever gem or metal one chooses and whatever happens in the world.

J is for Jensen

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The eponymous brand Georg Jensen epitomises the best of what we think of as Scandinavian design. Timeless yet innovative; made to the highest standards, yet often deliciously spare and simple. Their current web site opens with the phrase ‘Experience classic Scandinavian design at its most elegant and refined’. There is little to disagree with here, nearly 120 years after Jensen first started to make pieces for the Scandinavian market.

Today there are Georg Jensen shops and franchises worldwide. Producing and selling, jewellery, watches, tableware and giftware. Georg Jensen is perhaps best known for silver and the brand is still much associated with the style and principles of its founder.

It was tragic circumstances that lead Jensen to start producing silver in such a commercial way. He was born in 1866, the son of a knife grinder in a town to the north of Copenhagen. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a goldsmith where he studied for the next four years. Having been a jobbing silver and goldsmith for a further four years, he enrolled at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1887, where he studied sculpture.

After graduation he not only started to exhibit as a sculptor, but also started to study ceramics. For some years he tried to make a living as a ceramicist, but when his wife died, he was obliged to find a better way to make an income to support his young family and he turned to the production of silver and jewellery. However, his training in the wider range of fine Arts, a spell studying in Paris, and his interest in the naturalist styles of the Art Nouveau movement, combining flora and fauna into his work, remained a persistent theme and singled his designs out as materially different from those of others.

He was, like the members of the British Arts and Crafts movement, passionate about how pieces were made. He eschewed machinery and what he regarded as ugly mass produced pieces. It is a testament to his design principles and the quality of his manufacturing that many variants of the early designs are still in production today. He was committed to making beautiful pieces that were accessible to all budgets. This was handy, as the materials were less costly and therefore a smaller investment to an impoverished artisan. He used moonstones, amber, enamel, all in silver. After a highly successful early exhibition his pieces were in such demand that it is said he would put a sign in the workshop window saying ‘closed for repairs’, to buy himself some time to make more!

For many years he combined his work as a ceramicist with his silversmithing. The silversmithing was, however, far more lucrative and he had a young family to raise. He bought his first workshop in Copenhagen in 1904 and such was the appeal and quality of his design that by 1924 he had opened retail outlets in Berlin, London and New York. The New York store is of particular interest as it was run independently by Frederick Lunning, who had been a salesman for Jensen in Odense and Copenhagen and also opened the London shop. The first store New York Store, ‘Georg Jensen Handmade Silver’, was followed by a larger store on 5th Avenue selling a variety of homewares. This is still the case today.

One of Jensen’s skills was to recognise talent in others and employ their skills under the Jensen banner. They, in turn subscribed to both the design values and his insistence on high quality hand production. Over the century, Georg Jensen has employed numerous designers including Gundolph Albertus, Johan Rohde, Harald Nielsen and Henning Koppel.

If you own any Jensen pieces you will see, that as well as the classic Jensen stamp, many are signed with the name of their designer and also have a design number. If you acquire a piece of vintage Jensen, you will often be able to use these to trace the piece back to its origins.

He married four times, outliving three wives, he travelled widely, and experienced highs and lows artistically, emotionally and financially. Towards the end of his life, he was interviewed and asked about the purpose of Art. He replied “people worry too much about purpose. The object must…absorb the most beautiful abstracts from the nature that surrounds us.”

Designs showing beautiful abstracts from the nature that surrounds us.

Hocus pocus… Focus on… Amber

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To kick off this mini series of Halloween gems, amber is the chosen first. What could be more spooky than trapped insect containing deadly bacteria…

Prized for its deep rich and warm orange hue, amber is an organic gem, meaning that it is created from living or once living organism, it is fossilized tree resin dating tens of millions of years. It is composed of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Nicknamed “the gold of the North”, it is most commonly found on Northern Europe’s beaches, washed away with the ocean tides. It can also be dug from the ground and deposits have also been found in the Dominican Republic, Myanmar (Burma) and Mexico.

There is a distinction to be made between amber and copal amber. The latter refers to amber which fossilized less than a million years ago. But who’s counting!! It is also fossilized tree resin and is formed in the same manner. One cannot differentiate between the two using a magnifying glass, but rather by using “granny’s old tricks”. Some say that rubbing copal amber on the heel of your hand will emit a smell, others suggest a drop of acetone or even gasoline to determine copal from mature amber: amber is unaffected by acetone whereas copal softens the material. Either way, probably best to avoid doing at home and damaging one’s precious jewel!

Like with all gems, it takes very specific conditions to create amber. It takes a few million years for resin to harden. Once it has hardened it lays under sediment in an oxygen-free environment. It turns to copal amber. It then takes a few more million years to become more stable with the effects of heat and pressure applied to the copal amber to become amber. Research shows that the deposits found in the Baltic and Dominican Republic came from extended immersion under seawater.

Because of its relative softness – rating at 2/2.5 on the Mohs scale (talc powder rates at 1) – it is not commonly cut with facets, but rather polished into beads or free-form pieces.

Jewellery made of amber tend to be big pieces. The reason for it being the lightness of this gem, making it a perfect candidate to wear around one’s neck without feeling weighed down.

The most prized amber pieces are typically transparent, dark reddish hue. However, amber also comes in white and treatments to enhance colour can modify its appearance totally. Heat treatment and dying are commonly used to enhance amber and one distinct mark to look for are sun spangles. Heating amber can cause fracture-like marks: sun spangles.

Amber is a treasured gem because of the secrets they can unveil. The insects, fauna and animals they have sometimes captured tell a tale.

Inclusions play a huge part in the final value of amber but often if the inclusion is perfect, then it probably is too perfect to be real.

It can be extremely difficult to trust authentic amber with inclusions, such as this piece for sale on eBay for $129,000:

And this perfectly preserved scorpion, also on for sale at eBay for £4.90! :

When in doubt and spending a large amount, always ask for a report from a reputable laboratory.

Man-made or real, amber with insect inclusions make the perfect jewellery piece for trick or treating!

Hocus pocus… Focus on… Skull Jewellery

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Skull jewellery and gemstones

Skulls. Usually not what comes to mind when talking about jewellery design and carved gems. However, skull jewels, and especially rings, have had a long tradition of being part of one’s collection.

The appeal may not be so obvious but it is one that continues to be popular throughout times.

Why a skull? It acts as a reminder. That life is not forever and days are counted. That one should live every day to the fullest, carpe diem. And what’s not to love about that message? Embracing one’s life and accepting your fate, not always fighting against the things we cannot control.

In more recent years, Theo Fennell is recognised as one of the top fashion jewellers to use this symbol of life and has used all sorts of gemstones in his creations to amplify his creations.

If rings are not your go to jewellery item this Halloween, then perhaps a pendant necklace by the same designer could be an option.

Halloween calls for creativity, so this year, why not trade in the pumpkin for a carved gem skull? Sure to get your neighbours quivering in their boots and make a bold statement.

There are a multitude of options. In keeping with the orange theme of the pumpkin, a citrine skull could be an option.

Quartz, which citrine is a variety of, has a hardness of 7/7.5 on the Mohs scale and makes it a good candidate to get sharp edges to carve the teeth and a pointy nose.

It can also come other colours such as purple amethyst:

Or even blue:

A wide variety of options is available on the market, including at specialized auctions.

Bonhams sold this lot in Los Angeles in 2017 for $1,187 incl premium. It includes an amethyst obelisk decorated with twenty carved skulls, Height 11in; a sculpture comprising three skulls with a butterfly, carved of boulder opal from Queensland, Australia, length 5 1/2 in; together with a Mexican black obsidian carving of a skull with owl perched, height 6 1/2 in.

But possibly the most “out of this world” carved skull must be a sculpture sold in 2015 at Bonhams in Los Angeles, carved out of meteorite, making it the largest Gibeon meteorite carving in the world.

Gibeon meteorites are iron-based and “originated billions of years ago from unstable planet that existed briefly between Jupiter and Mars.

When the planet broke apart, a section of its core travelled through space for four billion years.” It penetrated the Earth’s atmosphere about 1,000 years ago and landed in Namibia.

This particular 21kgs life-sized carving, nicknamed Yorick, was created from a 280kgs meteorite. It is one of the rarest forms of meteorite.

The choice is vast for Halloween decorations whether for the house or fashionwear. All one needs to do now is pick the right outfit for a night of trick or treating…

Ametrine

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Ametrine is a form of quartz. It combines both the purple amethyst and the yellow citrine all into one stone, making it somewhat of a unique specimen. To add to this uniqueness, commercial ametrine is only found in Bolivia, and more precisely in the mine of Anahi.

What do we mean by commercial? Stones that are of a particular quality that can be cut and set into jewellery.

The mine was named after a legendary princess of the 1600s who married a Spanish conquistador and was given the mine as dowry. The mine located in a very remote area of Bolivia, was lost for centuries. Research shows that the mine was only rediscovered in the mid-50s, only accessible by plane and small boats.

Ametrine displays the same properties as amethystand citrine. Ametrine rates a 7/10 on the Mohs scale. The Mohs scale of mineral hardness was created by Friedrich Mohs in 1822 and determines the scratch resistance of minerals when scratches by another mineral.

The Mohs scale is used to manufacture everyday objects: your mobile phone’s screen glass is made of a material that scratches at level 6, some at level 7. Ametrine therefore has good toughness and is suitable to be set in jewellery, such as this sapphire and ametrine torsade necklace which sold at auction for $408 (pictured below).

It can be noticed that ametrine is most commonly found in jewellery as a rectangular-cut stone. This cut displays the bi-colour property of the gem, exposing both colours at its best, with the clear demarcation between the yellow and the purple. The most prized ametrine will display fine transparency, a good contrast of colours and an equal balance between the two colours. Though it rates rather high on the Mohs scale, its colour can fade if exposed for long periods of time to too much bright light. If ametrine is worn in jewellery, its wearer should be aware of its possibility to scratch and chip if not cared for properly.

How would one care for its ametrine-set jewels? The best and safest way to clean your jewellery is with good old fashion soap and warm water and not exposing it to high heat. It is preferable not to place the gem in an ultrasonic in case the stone or others in the piece of jewellery have been dyed or fracture filled (the machine’s vibrations will remove the modifications).

Because of its extraordinary features, ametrine is often carved into fantasy-cuts.

An ametrine carving of rooster by Gerd Dreher sold at auction for $12,575. Dreher is a German animal figure carver, the fourth generation of Dr eher in this line of activity. He was born in 1943 in Idar- Oberstein, one of the most important gemstone centres in the world with the finest lapidaries and gem cutters.

This gem-set obelisk / jewellery box by Manfred Wild (pictured top right) remained unsold at $200,000- 250,000. Wild aas born in 1944 in Kirshvayler near Idar-Oberstein. He is the eighth representative of the family dynasty that has been engaged in lapidary art since 1630. Manfred Wild is sometimes called “The 21st century Fabergé”.

Ametrine is used in a wide range of carvings for its intriguing features. It is not uncommon to see jewels set with ametrine but it seems to be slightly underappreciated for what it is: an exceptional wonder of nature who combines two stones into one giving it a delightful play with colours.

I is for iolite

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Iolite is the gemstone variety of cordierite, a magnesium, iron, aluminium and cyclosilicate mineral named after the French geologist Pierre Cordier (1777 – 1861) – founder of the French Geological Society.

As with some other blue gemstones, iolite is known for its pleochroic properties giving it that extra sparkle. Pleochroism is an optical phenomenon in which a substance has different colours when observed at different angles, especially with polarized light.

Iolite occurs in several areas of Africa, including Kenya and central Tanzania. In fact, when Tanzanite was first discovered, geologists thought it was corderite.

Other iolite source countries include India, Brazil, Norway and a large deposit found in 1994 in Madagascar.

The name iolite comes from the Greek word ios, meaning “violet”. It is said that iolite slices were used by Viking navigators to locate the sun on cloudy days, used as some form of compass.

The gem rates at 7 to 7.5/10 on the Mohs hardness scale. The Mohs scale of mineral hardness was created by Friedrich Mohs in 1822 and determines the scratch resistance of minerals when scratches by another mineral.

The Mohs scale is used to manufacture everyday objects: your mobile phone’s screen glass is made of a material that scratches at level 6, some at level 7.

Even though iolite scores rather high on the Mohs scale, it has strong cleavage in one direction, giving it only a fair toughness. Cleavage, caused by weak atomic bonds, is the weakest plane in a gemstone where the gemstone can split.

For this reason, jewellers are a little reluctant to use the gem in jewellery, specially any hard-wearing jewel such as rings for example.

The gem’s most sought after colours are violetish blue to fine blue. But iolite can appear to be greyish, even transparent, or golden and even brown. Depending on where the light hits, differentcolours will show. For this reason, iolite can be confused with colour change sapphires.

Vivid violetish iolites over 5 carats are rare and cannot be treated in the same way as corundum (sapphires) can be. Unlike sapphires, iolite’s chemical composition won’t allow it to be heat treated to intensify its colour. The gem would simply melt at such high temperatures.

Iolite is more often than not faceted, bringing out its unique transparency, free of inclusions.

But it also is a popular choice for cabochons.

In some iolites, a phenomenon called cat’s eye can sometimes be observed. This effect comes out at its best when the gem is cut as a cabochon.

The cat’s eye effect is caused by long, parallel, tubular inclusions. It can also be found in other gems such as sapphire and chrysoberyl.

Though iolite is hardly ever treated, making it a very appealing affordable blue-gem alternative, due to its relative hardness and lack of consistent fine quality supply, it is not found in as many workshops as tanzanites for example. However, iolite is also cut as beads and strung to make beautiful colourful
necklaces.

A wonderful twenty-first wedding anniversary gift…

The one that got away…

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I don’t recall the life-changing opportunity that was missed; perhaps that’s just as well. It would be galling to know that one had passed up an opportunity to buy something that went on to make multiple times the purchase price.

I do remember seeing two wonderful pairs of enamel cufflinks being sold very inexpensively at an antiques fair. The seller was insistent that he would only accept cash, and as I didn’t have that sum of money on me I asked him to hold them whilst I went to a cash point. When I returned, having extracted the maximum possible from three bank accounts, he nonchalantly informed me he’d sold them to someone else. Hard money on the spot clearly talks.

I also remember the insurance valuation I did for a couple who had recently downsized. Referring to a previous valuation schedule I queried the whereabouts of an impressive Victorian inkstand by a well-regarded maker. They informed me that they had had to dispose of a great deal in the move and they had sent the inkstand to a local charity shop, believing it to be silver plate and of little consequence. They were stoic about the discovery. No point in crying over spilt ink!

What has got away from me is trends. I wish I could have called the rise and fall of gold prices better. If only I’d known that as cigarette smoking fell from grace, there would be an unexpected rise in the popularity of cigars and cigar related memorabilia. Thirty odd years ago American Marvin R. Shanken launched Cigar Aficionado, and this venture set off perhaps the most unforeseen social craze of the 1990s — the renaissance of cigars and an explosion in the popularity of all cigar-related paraphernalia. This too has now largely fallen away.

One of my career-long passions has been cufflinks. I have supplied literally thousands of pairs of antique and vintage cufflinks to organisations both here and in America. I’ve constantly been told that they would be going out of fashion and that no one would want the bother of double cuffed shirts anymore. However, even as the tie has fallen from grace, the tailored shirt has remained a wardrobe staple and notwithstanding the hiatus of the pandemic cufflink sales are on rise again as workers return to offices. I have just sourced an Art Deco dress set for a well-known film franchise that wanted the genuine article and not a modern copy. I’m really glad that one didn’t get away.

The great thing about our world is that there is always tomorrow. There is endless speculation about where trends are going and what individual pieces might make. It’s one of the things that makes the art world so interesting. We all bring our expertise to bear on determining accurate prices, but the marketplace can be capricious and that’s what makes it exciting. Fashions come and go, and unexpected left-field shifts like the rise of NFTs can cause a significant change in thinking. Being able to foresee these repositioning of market forces would be a really useful superpower.

Eventually, most people are pragmatic about missed opportunities, which sometimes presents a chance to rethink and learn. I have a huge collection of single cufflinks that are partnerless. I shall let you decide if this collection should be viewed as the ones that got away or the ones that were saved. I prefer to think of them in the latter category, however, I’d be overjoyed to find their partners and restore the marriages.

The one that got away…

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Some time ago, I worked at Bonhams, in the jewellery department. Along with the regular monthly sales held in Knightsbridge were pawnbrokers’ auctions. These were comprised of any jewellery items which had not been redeemed by a customer and needed to be sold on the open market to obtain a fair price and hopefully achieve the best price for it.

The excitement and unpredictability of an auction never fades and each sale kept us on our toes. With pawnbroker sales, that unpredictability was tenfold. Because a pawnbroker client had until the very last moment to redeem his/her item, this meant that items could be withdrawn from an auction at any point prior to the item’s lot number being called out by the auctioneer.

In this case, the one that got away was a magnificent Burmese sapphire ring up for sale in the pawnbroker’s auction. Because pawnbroker auctions are so volatile, there are no catalogues and therefore no image, so I will do my best to convey this ring’s uniqueness.

The sapphire was Burmese. That in itself, is usually indication enough to express the velvety blue hue that sapphires from this part of the world have. Burmese, or Kashmir, sapphires are the most coveted sapphires, considered to have the deepest, intense and rich blue hue. Also known as “Royal Blue”.

Sapphires belong to the same family as rubies, they are corundum. Any coloured corundum, other than red, is called a sapphire. Sapphires differ from rubies in that they have iron as part of their crystal lattice.

Both sapphires and rubies from Burma make for the most exquisite gems. The value in a Burmese sapphire lies in the depth of colour and its dispersion. This is due to minute crystalline inclusions in the stone. Inclusions are small “imperfections” captured in a stone during its formation.

They are like fingerprints, unique to every gem. Below are a few examples of inclusions which are found in sapphires. These help identify where a gem formed, where it was mined and if the gem is natural (as opposed to synthetic, or man-made) and if it has had any treatment to enhance the colour or make inclusions less visible.

Mogok Sapphires

The sapphire in the ring that was up for auction had beautiful silk crystal inclusions and certainly had that “Royal Blue” hue about it. The most famous “Royal Blue” sapphire is probably the one set in Kate Middleton’s sapphire and diamond engagement ring, which belonged to her mother-in-law, the late Princess Diana.

The sapphire weighs 12 carats and is set within a surround of brilliant-cut diamonds. When it was made in 1981, the sapphire ring cost £50,000. Because of the provenance and history of the ring, it has become a priceless piece of jewellery, but one could estimate its current price to be around £500,000.

The world’s most expensive sapphire to sell at auction was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong on the 7th October 2015. It weighed 27.68 carats of natural Kashmir origin and made $6,702,564, $242,415 per carat.

It is common for these exceptional sapphires to be accompanied by multiple certificates. If one is to buy a gem, whether for pleasure or investment purposes, it is recommended to buy one with a certificate from a reputable laboratory such as SSEF, GIA, Gubelin.

Don’t be fooled by reports sold with sapphires in markets which simply state that the sapphire is a corundum and details its shape and weight. The stone could well have been man-made in a laboratory in which case a report should state “natural” or “synthetic”.

A gem can also be treated to make it more desirable. It is common practise for sapphires to be heat-treated to bring out more colour in the stone. This should also be mentioned in the report, along with any other enhancements.

Whatever the price of the gem, look for clarity from the seller/dealer/jeweller. If there is transparency and one knows what they are paying for then an honest transaction can proceed. If in doubt, walk away.

I was convinced this sapphire ring was a good investment opportunity. And I would have been right! Sapphires, like rubies and emeralds for example, have seen a net increase in value in the recent years. A similar ring to this superb sapphire ring selling for £25,000, would probably exceed £100,000 at auction in the present climate.

Unfortunately, the sapphire ring was to be pulled from auction moments before the sale was to start and this will forever be The One That Got Away…