Photo: ifeelstock/Depositphotos
Every bargain hunter dreams of uncovering a treasure at a thrift store or garage sale, but one woman in the UK literally discovered a hidden gem. In the late 1980s, she visited a car boot sale at West Middlesex hospital in Isleworth in west London and was drawn to a box of costume jewelry. She bought a huge cocktail ring for £10 (around $13), and wore it daily for 30 years without knowing its true worth.
In 2017, the woman decided to get the ring properly valued after its sparkle caught her eye while she was cleaning. Her local jeweler told her it could have substantial value, so she brought the ring to Sotheby’s jewelry department to get it properly appraised. The London auction house believed the ring's “fake” gem was actually a real diamond and sent it to the Gemological Institute of America for testing. Much to the owner’s surprise, it was confirmed as a 26.2-carat diamond valued at £350,000 ($382,383.29).
“The owner would wear it out shopping, wear it day-to-day. It’s a good-looking ring. But it was bought as a costume jewel. No one had any idea it had any intrinsic value at all,” said Jessica Wyndham, the head of the auction house’s London jewelry department. “They had been to quite a few car boot sales over the years. But they don’t have any history of collecting antiques and they don’t have any history of collecting diamonds. This is a one-off windfall, an amazing find.”
The owner—who didn’t want to be named—earned a total of $717,338 at the auction, which was almost double the original value. “It’s a life-changing amount of money,” Wyndham said. “No matter what your background is or what your past experiences have been, it’s going to revolutionize someone’s life.”
It’s not known how the ring ended up in a car boot sale, but the diamond is thought to have been cut in the 19th century. Wyndham explained that this antique style of diamond cutting is “slightly duller and deeper than you would see in a modern style” and “could trick people into thinking it’s not a genuine stone.”
She explains, “With an old style of cutting, an antique cushion shape, the light doesn’t reflect back as much as it would from a modern stone cutting. Cutters worked more with the natural shape of the crystal, to conserve as much weight of the crystal rather than make it as brilliant as possible. The older stones have quite a bit of personality. They sparkle in a different way.”
A British woman discovered that the $13 ring she bought at a garage sale 30 years ago contains a 26.2-carat diamond valued at a little over $382,000.
h/t: [Upworthy]
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