Pearls of wisdom

Pearls of wisdom What Jackie Kennedy’s $35 necklace tells us about price and value

- Giles Kime

THOMAS WOODHAM-SMITH, co-founder of the Treasure House Fair that opens its doors in the grounds of Royal Hospital Chelsea tomorrow, recently related a story about a necklace of fake pearls that was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, in 1996 for $212,000, a 6,000% increase on the $35 paid at Bergdorf Goodman in the 1950s. Better still, the necklace was later copied 130,000 times, grossing the owners a total of $26 million, and it is now stashed away in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington. The reason for its mesmeric appeal? It formerly belonged to Jackie Kennedy.