JEWELLERY AND THE WAR.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 793, 25 August 1916, Page 4

JEWELLERY AND THE WAR.

The war has had the effect of bringing into the market some very costly jewellery (writes a London correspondent). Soine society ladies, faced with the necessity of raising money owing to the way in which the war has reduced their incomes, are parting with their most valuable ornaments. A lady advertised in "The Times" a few days ago that, being "badly hit by the war," she "might sell her magnificent two-row necklace of pearls." She stated that the necklace cost £13,000 15 years ago, and that she would entertain an offer "anywhere near that." In the same paper another lady "urgently in need of money" asked for bids for her "fine three-row pearl necklace, which originally cost £12,000." During the same week a pearl necklace of three rows composed of 193 pearls, which weighed 403 carats, was sold for £24,000 at Christie's, the most famous auction rooms in London. This necklace was catalogued as "the property of a lady," and the pearls were described as '' of finest Orient with pinkish tinge."- This is the highest price that has ever been realised at auction in England for a pearl necklace. In 1903 a pearl necklace which belonged to Lady Henry Gordon Lennox brought £22,500 at Christie's. It was in five rows, and was composed of 287 pearls. The most costly pearl necklace ever made vanished in the post between London and Paris in July, 1913. It consisted of only 61 pearls, but they were so p<*.v,etly matched and graded both in si. 3 and colour that the necklace was valued at £135,000 by the gem dealer who made it. Ea ;h of these pearls possessed the pink tinge know-, in the gem trade as "rosy warm." It was such a costly piece of jewellery that the maker was unable to find a purchaser for it, even among American millionaires. It was on its way to him through the post from his agent in Paris, where it had been shown to a prospective purchaser, when it disappeared. Two months later the loose pearls which had composed the necklace were found in a large wooden matchbox which had been dropped in the gutter of a street in North Loudon by one of the thieves •when the police were on his track. Pour men were subsequently convicted and were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.