Jewellery

Two Russian diamond necklaces, with links to Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in Geneva next month with a $10m estimate.

A remarkable Australian gold rush era bracelet was sold by Chorley’s of Prinknash Abbey Park earlier this month for £57,000. The buyer was an Australian private collector.

Buyers at a recent Fellows auction in Birmingham showed the strength in the market for amber.

A historic jewellers in Bolton is in the process of closing after reporting that the decline of the high street and the rise of the internet made trading impossible for them.

Opposition to the ‘outsourcing’ of UK hallmarks overseas is gathering momentum in the trade. Campaigners say the use of British hallmarks in India threatens a 700-year-old system for stamping precious metals.

A temporary export bar has been placed on the coronet designed for Queen Victoria by her husband Prince Albert, giving UK buyers an opportunity to raise the £5m (plus £1m VAT) asking price to keep it in the country.

The imminent arrival of Crossrail services in London are threatening the character of the Hatton Garden jewellery quarter.

New London books and works on paper specialists Forum Auctions plan to hold their first jewellery and watches sale in November following the appointment of Andrea de Miglio as the head of a new department.

A skull and crossbones ring or a skeleton on a chain are now likely to be seen hanging from a Goth looking like they have just stepped out of a Tim Burton film or heading for the biannual Whitby music fest.

The 28th edition of the Paris ‘Biennale des Antiquaires’ will include a radical shake-up of its jewellery content.

Jewellery specialists Symbolic & Chase have doubled the size of their premises with a move into an additional floor of their building in Mayfair.

The Oppenheimer Blue diamond set the world record for any jewel sold at auction at Christie’s Geneva yesterday.

The Palm Beach Show Group have announced the launch of a new fair in Miami Beach.

A rotting old caravan propped up on a farm might not sound like the kind of place you’d expect to discover a valuable family heirloom. But for a Devon-based furniture restorer, it proved just that when they found an Art Deco brooch believed to be a rare piece hiding within the contents of the van.

A medieval ring long associated with Joan of Arc sold for £240,000 – almost 30 times its estimate – at Timeline Auctions in Bloomsbury on February 25.

Sotheby’s London will be showing hundreds of previously unseen jewellery drawings in a one-off exhibition from February 18-March 8, sourced from a privately owned collection of jewellery and silver.

This gold and peacock blue enamel necklace designed by Archibald Knox sold for £31,000 at Mallams in Oxford.

The law on tiger jewellery is frequently flouted. Last week on eBay – a site that operates a ban on antique ivory – several items of big cat jewellery were on sale from UK vendors.

This silver and labradorite floral necklace designed by Georg Jensen c.1915 sold for $17,000 (£10,970) at a recent auction held by Skinner of Boston.

Bonhams of Bond Street are to sell what is perhaps the most significant collection of cameos and intaglios seen on the market for decades.