Category Archives: Collectables

Here we have a gorgeous pair of signed Napier faux pearl earrings.

They are lush.
With a luxury luminous lustre.

Pearls are the oldest known gems.
They can be traced back to 520BC; a fragment of jewellery was found in the tomb of a Persian Princess.

Known as the Susa necklace, it is now on display in the Louvre:

To the Ancient Persians, pearls symbolised the moon and its magical powers, alluding to purity and perfection.

In December 2011 La Peregrina famously sold for a record price of £7 million at Christies, New York. Once owned by Queen Mary I of England, the pearl was bought in 1969 by Richard Burton, as a Valentine’s Day gift for his wife Elizabeth Taylor.

Here she recounts the story of losing the pearl during a stay at Caesar’s Palace, Nevada:

“At one point I reached down to touch La Peregrina and it wasn’t there! I glanced over at Richard and thank God he wasn’t looking at me, and I went into the bedroom and threw myself on the bed, buried my head into the pillow and screamed. Very slowly and very carefully, I retraced all my steps in the bedroom. I took my slippers off, took my socks off, and got down on my hands and knees, looking everywhere for the pearl. Nothing. I thought, It’s got to be in the living room in front of Richard. What am I going to do. He’ll kill me! Because he loved the piece.

After few minutes of mental anguish, Taylor looked at their puppies. One of them was apparently chewing on a bone, but nobody gave bones to the puppies. She continues:

I just casually opened the puppy’s mouth and inside his mouth was the most perfect pearl in the world. It was—thank God—not scratched.”

That story makes me hyperventilate just thinking about it.

Have you ever done that?

LOST A PIECE OF PRECIOUS JEWELLERY?

I have, frequently.

Returned to the sock drawer, or sugar bowl, or mattress cover, and felt that hot tide flow over me with the horrid, dreadful realisation/paralysis that what was a certainty, what I was so sure about, is no longer.

And then the panic, the anxiety, the STRESS!

Is it behind the boiler? In the freezer? At the bottom of the cotton wool ball bag?

Followed by the relief. It was in my dressing gown pocket. Of course it was. Der.

These pearl earrings won’t cost you millions, and I doubt they’ll find their way into the Louvre, but they are very beautiful, and would make a fabulous gift.

Put them in a safe place. One you can remember!

Click on the photo, and they can be yours!