The Big Gem Mystery

The great international jewel mystery started with a society-column item in the New York Mirror. All Paris was agog at word about a "titled international couple who had a little jewelry trouble lately. It seems that two years ago when the gentleman married his beautiful lady, he bought from an American jeweler of excellent reputation a magnificent pair of canary diamond earrings and four black pearls-- of unparalleled size and beauty. This summer the lady noticed the pearls were fading. She took them to several Paris jewelers." Their unanimous verdict was that the pearls had been dyed. Then the diamonds were found to be artificially colored. Result: "When the couple visited New York recently, they returned the gems and walked out with a check for almost half a million."

First Manhattan jeweler to react was Tiffany & Co. On New Year's Day, Tiffany informed readers in a two-column New York Times ad: "Description of the seller as 'an American jeweler of excellent reputation' has apparently raised the question in some people's minds whether this meant Tiffany & Co. The answer is: It was not Tiffany & Co." Last week, in identically worded ads that appeared side by side in the Times, Van Cleef & Arpels and Carter assured "our patrons and friends that we are not the jewelry concern in question." Black Starr & Gorham followed with a "not me" ad in the Times. The Times's Advertising Columnist Robert Alden reported that the jewelry buyer was Prince Sadruddin Khan, half brother of Aly Khan and uncle of the new Aga Khan. Though other New York jewelers know the name of the seller, for "ethical considerations" they cannot name him. But somebody must be talking, Alden concluded: "The word is that a stream of customers have been going into his shop and asking for their money back on purchases from him."

* Natural black pearls and natural canary diamonds are rare. A black pearl four-tenths of an inch in diameter is worth up to $7,500 compared to $350 for a culture white pearl dyed black. A large canary diamond (not to be confused with off-color or cheap "yellow" diamonds) may bring ten times the price of a white stone. Diamonds can be synthetically colored by atomic radiation or dyed by a vacuum process similar to coating a photo lens.

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