Jewellery

THIS locket, believed to contain the hair of Admiral Lord Nelson to one side and Lady Emma Hamilton to the reverse, was previously unknown to Nelson experts but it turned up at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury after being consigned by a vendor in Australia who has family connections to Portsmouth.

THE U.S. Supreme Court in Washington has delivered a significant blow to Tiffany & Co’s bid to stop the sale of counterfeit jewellery on eBay.

SOTHEBY’S set a new auction record for a jewel in Geneva when a 24.78-carat fancy intense pink diamond sold to London jeweller Laurence Graff at SFr40.5m (£25.6m) plus premium.

TIFFANY have lost on most counts in their appeal against a ruling in a US federal district court backing eBay over the sale of the firm’s jewellery.

THE appeal of Paris as an auction centre for jewellery received a boost at the start of the year, when France slashed import VAT on “rare” or “high value” jewellery from 19.6 per cent to 5.5 per cent.

The 17th century Wittelsbach diamond was bought for £14.6m (plus premium) by dealer Laurence Graff at Christie’s on December 10, beating the previous auction record – the $16.5m paid for a 100 carat rock at Sotheby’s Geneva in 1995.

ENGLISH goldwork from the Renaissance period does not survive in great quantity. So the appearance of a 16th century Tudor gold livery collar on the market at Christie's earlier this month was a rare occasion.

THIS month's Winter Fine Art & Antiques Fair, to be held at Olympia from November 10 to 16, has a particularly strong jewellery section, with international Geneva-based jewellers Grima showing for the first time at any fair, and one of London's fastest rising young stars of the jewellery scene, Symbolic and Chase, also making their debut.

MORE than £80,000 worth of jewellery was stolen from the Ardingly Showground on Wednesday, September 3.

Phillips de Pury’s Hip Hop Crown Jewels auction scheduled for October 1 in New York has been postponed until March 5, 2009.

Phillips de Pury are holding the first ever auction of hip hop jewellery on October 1 in New York. The sale, titled Hip Hop's Crown Jewels will offer some serious bling worn by some of the music movement's biggest stars.

Tiffany & Co have appealed over the ruling that eBay do not have to police their auction site for fakes before they are sold to unwitting buyers.

THIS 2in (5cm) long brooch is textbook Lalique. Fashioned as a cicada, its main constituent is glass set into a gold frame. The insect’s body is formed from pâte de verre and the wings from plique à jour enamel, both favourite Lalique materials.

Ebay have won a landmark judgment in the US federal courts, which effectively protects their position as an independent trading platform.

A DEALER had £50,000 of jewellery stolen when his car was broken into after he returned from a fair in Birmingham. Thieves used the same modus operandi employed in previous thefts at Coinex and in Hatton Garden.

The Louvre have secured the return of a French Crown Jewel after 121 years, through a private sale with Christie’s New York.

The significance of this unassuming oval cabochon emerald ring, is far greater than first appears.

BELGIAN art dealer Maximin Berko is the driving force behind the Shanghai Fine Jewellery and Art Fair which will be launched at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre from October 13 to 21 this year.

Son of Sir James Thornhill, brother-in-law to William Hogarth and serjeant painter to the King, John Thornhill was also a founder member of the Whig Beefsteak Club.

RECOMMENDED by Fiona Knapp, who has recently designed a range of jewellery for the Biba label, as one of the best places to buy gemstones in London, the quarterly Rock and Gem Show is held at Kempton Park Racecourse with the next scheduled for October 21 and 22.