GREAT EMERALD REALISES £12,000

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6843, 22 February 1929, Page 2

GREAT EMERALD REALISES £12,000

An emerald, the size of a half-crown, was sold to a rich peeress by a Bond street jeweller for £12,000. Henceforth this huge gem will glow on the lady's corsage, aird in time become an heirloom (says K. F, in the Daily Chronicle). Twelve thousand pounds for a single stone! A hundred and twenty carats of transparent green mineral. What extravagance! What displavl What folly! That is the snap opinion. But it is the practical truth that this great emerald has earned money for hundreds of simple workers and their dependents beforo slipping into her ladyship ts jewel casket. hinny an office clay, clerk, typist, and manager have already been drawing dividends front’ this scrap of treasure, should they be employed in one of the great . insurance ’Companies. • Not only the dealers and the staffs- who have dealt in the valuable, stone or the cutters and polishers in the lapidary have already shared in the £12,000 paid by the lover .of beautiful' things, but all those excellent people who depend on Bond street and its prestige for a livelihood. It is fascinating to trace the division of tho sum paid for this green eye of Mother Nature. The maker of the chair, on which the purchaser sat, the manufacturer of the velvet which, covcrcd the cushion on which the jewel rested, the highly-salaried manager, who pointed out the depth of colour, all derived in proportion their share of the enormous sum of £12,000. So' much for the economics. Now for tho aesthetic pleasure which a magnificent’ stone can give. Whenever

this gem flashes at Court, at the opera, in the tonneau of a limousine, every beholder may enjoy a glance at its rarity. This emerald may be a mere rock to- some. To others it may be another manifestation of the beauty which exists or uartli.