the economic turmoil linked to the coronavirus pandemic has increased pressure on investors to seek assets that can yield strong returns and now extraordinary natural pearls are in focusrecent auctions have seen a frenzy of demand by collectors and buyers for natural pearl items even more so for those that have an extra special provenance or record of ownershipthe most notable example was the sale of a pearl pendant that had once belonged to illfated french queen marie antoinette by sothebys in geneva in november 2018sothebys had set a presale estimate of 12 million for the exceptional and highly important natural pearl and diamond pendanthowever such was the ferocity of bidding from around the world that the pendant whose pearl measured 1590 mm by 1835 mm by 2585 mm reached a world record price of 36 million the highest price ever paid for a pearl jewelas the bidding edged to a close in the luxury mandarin oriental hotel you could hear a pin drop in the sales rooma rapidfire pingpong battle between two telephone bidders had run out of steam and both of them were taking a lot longer to make up their minds before bidding furtherthe contest between the two bidders had lasted for over 10 minutes in the packed auction room at one point rising swiftly by one million swiss francs every bid before one of the bidders an anonymous private buyer finally bought the pendant and a big round of applause rang outthe extraordinary price for the pearl was very much due to its provenance the fact that the last queen of france had held this piece in her collection before going to the guillotineit is extremely difficult to calculate how much the provenance will add to the value of a piece of jewellery and in this case much of the price achieved for the pearl pendant was due to its story relating to marie antoinette daniela mascetti chairman jewellery europe of sothebys said after the salea mixture of natural pearls in all colors shapes and sizes credit danatnatural pearl jewellery has been worn as a symbol of wealth for centuries portraits of society personalities wearing pearls reinforced their social position and prestigenoora jamsheer ceo of danat more recently competition from cultured pearls developed by mankind has made pearl jewellery much more widely available to peoplebut the extreme rarity of natural pearl jewellery underscores its potential value as an investmentthere is no doubt that the natural pearl market has seen a considerable resurgence in the past decade said jean ghika global head of jewellery at bonhams auction housebuyers and collectors tend to favour pearls with smooth blemishfree skins in addition they focus on the size shape lustre and colour of individual pearlspearl oyster shucking image courtesy danat examples that combine all these criteria are becoming increasingly rarethe pollution of the worlds oceans is accentuating the rarity of natural pearls overfishing and pollution in the waters that have historically yielded the best and most constant supply of