HEIRESS’S JADE NECKLACE

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 December 1934, Page 11

HEIRESS’S JADE NECKLACE

' DEALER’S £7,000 PROFIT. NEW YORK, November 1. A Chinese jade merchant and an Armenian jeweller met in the New York Supreme Court to-day to settle a dispute over a jade necklace which Prince Alexis Mdivani bought last December as a Christmas present for his wife, the former Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth, heiress. The Prince paid £B,OOO for his gift, but the Chinese dealer, Chang Wen Ti, a white-haired, mild-mannered man, admitted in the witness-box today that it cost only £5OO in China. He tried to explain how multifarious taxes accounted for t]iio surprising difference in the two figures. , The Armenian, M'esrob Atikian, complains that Chang, formerly his partner, failed to pay him 10 per cent, commission on the sale. Chang denies that there was any need to pay this, and the arguments of the two former partners, neither of whom speaks English with ease, both puzzled and amused the jury. When the court was adjourned Chang told me the necklace was quite a short one, technically known as a “choker,” and said it was exactly like hundreds of others to be picked up in his native land for a comparatively modest sum. The prince, he said, purchased it at the request of his wife, who had seen it in the window.