This is a funny anecdote, like a “treasure in the attic”, told to me this week by a diamond friend with whom I was having lunch. The story begins with an inheritance, a jewellery box, and two ladies who arrived at his office…
I’m still laughing about it, but I’m thinking that they were really lucky! When they arrived in my office, I wondered why they had made an appointment. A vague story about an inheritance and a strange piece of jewellery. I had nothing to lose and it seemed obvious to me to take some time to inform them. And I was curious because the lady I had spoken to on the phone was a bit confused to bother me for – a priori – so little. So I received her with her daughter. She starts by telling me that it is the first time she has been to a diamond dealer. That this is not a usual procedure, I smiled. You have to believe that we almost scare people!
I don’t think we scare people, but we impress them. Clearly. And we amaze, too.
She then takes out a wooden jewellery box from the bag, not a beautiful box, no. Something basic, a bit old, but worthless. Inside, a jumble of costume jewellery. Plastic, gold metal, rhinestones, dozens of broken things. And she also unwraps a pendant in a small pouch. And she explains to me that while tidying up the house of a cousin who died recently, she found this box. Indeed, the cousin loved fake jewellery and wore a lot of it. Hence the box… So she decided to give it to her six-year-old granddaughter. It would make disguises. A few days later, her daughter called her. The granddaughter was playing with a very shiny piece of jewellery in the living room. And to get her to give it back, we had to negotiate finely! This is the famous pendant.
The question was how to get a shiny princess necklace returned, which a six-year-old girl had been playing with and dressing her dolls with for a few days.
So they went to a local jeweller, a retailer of watch batteries. You get the idea… In short, he explains that it’s an old thing with a white sapphire but advises them to check with someone who knows a bit more about it. And fortunately! So in the box of fake jewellery, his granddaughter found a platinum pendant with a pear-cut diamond weighing over 2 carats. Talk about a white sapphire… And a beautiful stone! We ended on a humorous note by saying that the pendant would go to the young finder in a few years. Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?
An excellent idea, in fact. It will be the first piece of “grown-up” jewellery for a little one who has an eye for it.
See you soon!