When embarking on a valuation, a valuer never knows what they will see and sometimes it’s the little, seemingly lower value items at the bottom of the jewellery box that are the most surprising.
I was asked to do a valuation for a large quantity of jewellery and watches. After appraising all the diamond and gem set pieces and the significant collection of watches, there was just an assortment of silver cufflinks remaining. I decided to value them in groups, starting with the designer ones: Tiffany & Co, Tom Ford, Cartier. I imagined they would be £200- £300 a pair. However this was not the case.

Later, when I started to do my research I discovered that Tom Ford do not sell silver cufflinks. The pair in question were oval in outline with a mother of pearl panel and the engraved initials ‘JB’. Apparently Tom Ford had specially manufactured four pairs of these cufflinks for the James Bond movie Spectre. One of these pairs had been sold at the Christies Spectre auction in 2016 for £74,500!

Needless to say I nearly fell off my chair! I re-contacted the client and asked for some information about the provenance of these cufflinks. Had they been purchased at auction? The response was ‘no they were a gift from Barbara Broccoli’.

In the article it mentioned that EON Productions had the two other pairs of cufflinks stored in their archives, so I decided to contact them. They were incredibly helpful and replied to my email almost immediately. They confirmed that Tom Ford had produced the cufflinks for the movie at a cost of £300 per pair. They had two pairs in their archives insured for the value of £3000 each. One pair had been gifted to a friend by the producers and one pair had been sold at auction for £74,500.

So what is the value of these cufflinks – £300, £3000 or £74,500? If the client decided to sell them at auction it could be argued that they would command £74,000 again, maybe even more. Movie memorabilia is highly desirable and sought after, especially when it comes to James Bond.

I explained my findings to the client and it was decided that an Agreed Value should be placed on these cufflinks, a value that the client and insurance company were comfortable with, that would be paid out if anything should happen to the cufflinks.

It was such a fascinating valuation. It really highlighted the fact that many clients have been gifted items of jewellery and they have absolutely no idea of their value, let alone have them listed for insurance purposes. When was the last time you had the contents of your jewellery box professionally reviewed? Diamonds may be forever, but be careful not to overlook the other treasures.