Queen Elizabeth II's triple-strand pearl necklaces are worth a lot of money. Borrowman estimates that each of the queen's pearl necklaces could be worth “over £5,000,000.” That would be the equivalent of about $5.7 million.
Current estimates place the value of the British Crown Jewels between $4 to $6 billion. Today, the British Crown Jewels are kept in the Tower of London and represent over 800 years of the history of the British monarchy. The Imperial State Crown is one of the most famous of the items housed there.
The royal family, of course, are lucky enough to wear largely natural pearl jewellery. Queen Elizabeth herself wore them when she was mourning her father George VI after his death in February 1952.
Queen Elizabeth II is rarely seen in public without her favorite three-strand pearl necklace — a gift from her beloved father, King George VI, who passed away in 1952. What most Royal Family followers don't know is that the Queen actually owns three nearly identical pearl necklaces that she rotates freely.
After the death of her husband Prince Albert, the Queen famously wore black for the rest of her life, accessorizing only with black, colorless, or pearl jewelry. She wore strands of pearls, thought to represent tears, for 40 years.
Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Anne has inherited her mother's favourite piece of jewellery. A gift from her father, King George VI, the three-strand pearl necklace became an iconic element of the late monarch's signature look.
In Spencer, Diana is horrified (though seemingly unsurprised) to discover her husband gave her the same pearl necklace he gave to his then-mistress, Camilla Parker-Bowles. There's no evidence to suggest this gift-giving snafu ever happened (or that she ate them at the dinner table).
Queen Elizabeth II's Pearl Necklaces
Owing to their sentimental and historical significance, each of the Queen's three-strand pearl necklaces could be worth over £5,000,000.
VALUED AT AROUND AU$122 MILLION (£66 million), experts believe the Nizam of Hyderabad necklace is the royal family's most expensive piece of jewellery. And it's the most prestigious in the large collection of Queen Elizabeth II.
Did Prince Charles give the same pearls? One cause of discord between Diana and Charles in Larraín's film is the prince's decision to gift a stunning pearl necklace to his wife for Christmas. The problem: He gave an identical present to his longtime mistress Camilla Parker Bowles (Emma Darwall-Smith).
This Melo Melo pearl possesses what is perhaps the most beautiful feature of these exquisite pearls, something only 1 percent of Melo Melo pearls exhibit: the flamelike markings that dance across the surface. Melo Melo pearls take decades to grow in these sea snails—and they occur only naturally.
Currently, the largest confirmed gem pearl, the Pearl of Allah, also known as the Pearl of Lao Tze, weighs 14 pounds and its estimated worth is a mere $35 million. This pearl was also found off the coast of Palawan Island, Philippines, in 1934.
Naturally colored blue pearls are the rarest pearl colors in the world (with one or two exceptions, which we will get to below). The color has existed in pearls for decades, but only recently have naturally colored blue pearls gained popularity in the modern pearl jewelry markets.
Following Queen Elizabeth II's death at the age of 96, the monarch's priceless jewels will likely be given to members of the royal family, including Queen Consort Camilla and Kate Middleton.
The Royal Collection
This includes the Gem and Jewels, a collection of 277 precious objects such as cameos, intaglios, jewels and medieval gems that are kept at Windsor Castle. Like the Crown Jewels, these historic pieces are essentially priceless and unlikely to ever be sold.
The Queen neither owns them—nor could she ever sell them. Buckingham Palace: The Queen's primary residence in London where she will host an evening party for 300 family and friends the night of the wedding.
The Coronation Spoon
One of the oldest objects in the Crown Jewels is the twelfth-century Coronation Spoon. It is used for anointing the sovereign with holy oil, the most sacred part of the coronation ceremony.
While Kate will inherit $110 million in jewelry from the Queen, that collection will not include the Spencer tiara, a diamond-encrusted crown inherited by William's late mother, Princess Diana, in the mid-1970s. Diana wore the tiara in her wedding to King Charles—then Prince Charles—in 1981.
Queen Elizabeth's engagement ring is relatively understated and is valued at $227,500. It's a three-carat, old European cut centre stone which is surrounded by smaller diamonds. Prince Phillip designed the ring himself, making use of diamonds taken from a tiara belonging to his mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg.
The famous story of Cleopatra's pearls is told by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History. Pliny, often called the world's first gemologist, estimated the two pearls' worth at 60 million sestertii, or roughly $28.5 million in today's dollars.
The Queen's wedding dress, designed by Norman Hartnell, 1947. The dress is made from ivory silk and decorated with crystals and 10,000 seed pearls.
The Duchess of Cambridge is a lucky lady for many reasons. One being that she is now the owner of Princess Diana's most famous jewel. Originally created by British jeweller Garrard, Prince Charles chose this grand sapphire ring for his proposal to Diana in February 1981.
In the fall of 2020, Kate debuted a new pendant necklace, which appeared to use precious stones from Princess Diana's famed Saudi suite of sapphires—a gift from the Saudi royal family to the late Princess of Wales on the occasion of her wedding, featuring sapphires and diamonds designed to match her Garrard enagement ...
The late princess continued to wear her engagement ring even after she and Prince Charles divorced in 1996. After her death, Prince William inherited the sapphire sparkler, eventually using it to propose to Kate Middleton in 2010.
The “lion's share” of Queen's extensive jewelry collection, according to The Daily Express, will be given to Kate, the new Princess of Wales, but, according to the outlet, Camilla will get first dibs. “The late monarch owned an extraordinary collection of jewelry worth billions of pounds,” The Express reports.