Got a cool few million lying around? These historic rocks might be money well spent.
Royal jewels smuggled out of Russia during the 1917 revolution, alongside rare colored diamonds, are heading up for auction next week in Geneva, Switzerland, Reuters reported.
A ring with an orange-pink diamond weighing 25.62 carats is estimated to fetch $3.9 million to $5.9 million, and is the main attraction of the auction, CNN reported.
"A beautiful crystal, it's a fantastic color with a little bit of orange but not too much, so it's a very subtle color," Olivier Wagner, head of sales and jewelry expert at Sotheby's Geneva, told Reuters.
The auction is attracting folks who have deep pockets that want to spend big after over a year locked away in a pandemic.
"The market is currently very dynamic and after the pandemic people are very keen to buy jewelry today and to buy something tangible they can enjoy,” Wagner told Reuters.
Other items on the expensive block are a large oval sapphire and diamond brooch and matching ear-clips from the jewelry box of the aunt of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, CNN reported.
"They belonged to the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia who was the queen of social life in St. Petersburg. She was the wife of the Grand Duke Vladimir, so the son of the tsar (Alexander II), and she had a fantastic collection of jewels," Wagner told Reuters.
The royal set was entrusted to Pavlovna’s friend Albert Henry Stopford, a British diplomat in Russia, who took them to London for safekeeping along with other jewels, Reuters said. Pavlovna escaped from the Russian Revolution and died in France in 1920. Her brooch and earrings are being sold by a regal European family who bought them at auction in 2009, the auction house said, according to Reuters.
