FEATURE
AUCTION JEWELLERY
Fellows auction house
Lot 235 - GRIMA
- a 1970s 18ct
gold sapphire and
diamond cluster
ring.
Estimate: £1,800
- £2,600. Price
realised: £7,145.60
Lot 236 - GRIMA
- a 1970s 18ct gold
diamond dress
ring.
Estimate: £7,000
- £9,000. Price
realised: £10,718.40
THE STATE OF THE
AUCTION MARKET
Calling on his wealth of experience
Curiel notes that there are
currently three main trends taking
hold of the jewellery auction
market. “First of all contemporary
jewellery
meaning
jewellery
made in the 21st Century. This
is extremely popular today with
new designers such as Jar, Baghat,
Chin, and Carnet all currently
being courted by private buyers.
It is the way that the auction
business is going in general with
the 20th and 21st Centuries now
the name of the game, the 16th,
17th, 18th are doing OK, but
these are in great demand.”
24 JEWELLERY FOCUS
Signed pieces are always popular and we are seeing
an increase in the interest received for British Sixties and
Seventies pieces. This is apparent in the continual rise in
prices realised for Grima pieces. In October we sold two rings
by the renowned British jeweller, Andrew Grima. These two
rings were part of an extensive single owner collection of
Seventies jewellery. They were both very distinctively Grima
in style and workmanship.
Lot 117 - A late
Victorian gold
diamond hinged
bangle.
Estimate:
£18,000 - £22,000.
Price realised:
£30,624.00
Another popular lot in the October Antique & Modern
Jewellery auction was this impressive Victorian diamond
bangle. It typifies the late Victorian style so often seen in three
or five stones rings from the same period, with its heavy hand
carved decorative gold scrolled gallery. The diamond points
on either side of the large diamonds gives the bangle a good
line and enhances the larger stones. The principal diamond
weighed 3.40cts, a good sized stone by itself let alone part of
a larger piece. Pieces of this size have so often been broken up
into smaller pieces of jewellery, it is unusual to see it in such
good condition. The bangle realised £30,624.00 at auction.
The second trend he explains
are coloured diamonds, like the
Pink Legacy and the Perfect Pink.
Curiel says these are currently
bringing in “£2-3m per carat”
whereas a white diamond is
“only worth £100,000 per carat”.
“Once you are a collector who
has a 10-carat white or colourless
diamond and a 15-carat pear-
shaped diamond, you eventually
want something else, and what
else is there in terms of diamonds?
The answer is coloured.”
The third and final trend is
period jewellery, untouched and
unaltered from the ‘20s and ‘30s
is currently found to be in “great
demand”. “If we want to have a
‘‘
Prices for certain
categories
of gems and
jewellery
have risen
exponentially in
the last 10 years
and according
to the Knight
Frank Luxury
Index, jewellery
now outperforms
the UK housing
market
‘‘
On a smaller scale jewellery auctions are still revealing some
extremely rare and famous pieces of jewellery. Named the
‘leading UK regional auctioneer’ Fellows auction house recently
recorded overall sales of £17m in 2017. Below Nicola Whittaker, of
Fellows Auctioneers details some of their most interesting lots
of 2018 so far.
successful sale today we have to
have a combination of all three of
these things,” confirms Curiel.
When posed a similar question
on trends hitting the jewellery
auction market, Barber alludes
to the continuously increasing
figures these types of jewellery are
bringing in. “Prices for certain
categories of gems and jewellery
have risen exponentially in the
last 10 years and according to
the Knight Frank Luxury Index,
jewellery now outperforms the
UK housing market. Top quality
gems from extinct antique mines
are increasing in value because
only a finite number of these
examples exist.”
November 2018 | jewelleryfocus.co.uk