Sotheby's started its own line of diamond jewelry three and a half years ago and for the first three years it performed tremendously. Much less so now! It is a partnership between the auction house and Steinmetz Diamond Group, which is DeBeers' number one customer.
Desperate times require sordid measures, so Sotheby's has begun bringing their jewels out from the chic private showroom at their New York headquarters and onto the exhibition floors, so that the elderly masses going to go see the terrible Picasso that is the highlight of their Impressionist and Modern Art auction this week can also check out the jewels.
A visitor this weekend to Sotheby's at York and 72nd was helpfully informed by the sales staff that owning a $2-million pink diamond ring-and it was really a discreet little thing-was a fine idea. You see, if one must leave the country suddenly, one could convert it to $1 million in cash in any country in the world as soon as you leave the airport.
One would have to take a heavy hit in the fire sale but at least one would have enough cash to reestablish one's base, or whatever one does when one flees a country. Buy foreign passports, I assume.
That this idea had never occurred to the visitor before did not make it any less attractive.
Well as far as ostentatious displays of wealth go, I'd rather purchase Guernica and wear it as a sandwich board.
mmmmm...sandwiches...
If I need to leave the country suddenly--I will need a piece of jewelery I can convert into an 8ball as soon as I touch foreign soil.
I know someone whose family made its way here thanks to the diamonds sewn into their hemlines. Try that, shorts! But don't try this with retail rocks from Sotheby's though, Choire. Hit the actual auctions or the diamond district (not the street level shops) with a borrowed copy of the Rapaport Report.
Servicey but honest: that's how we ex-auction house slaves roll.