Antiques Roadshow star broke world record with item she’d ‘never seen before in her life’ (Image: BBC)
expert Joanna Hardy began her career valuing and grading diamonds.
The 62-year-old jewellery specialist recalled the occassion she made a record-breaking profit on a rare item – a pink diamond she had never seen before.
The expert shared that she had worked at an auction house as a diamond specialist in her late 20s when a lady brought in a large ruby.
“I looked at it and saw it was synthetic. I sat her down in a quiet room, gave her a glass of water and said, ‘I’m really sorry, it’s only worth £50, if that’,” Joanna explained to Daily Mail’s This Is Money in 2023. “She replied, ‘Oh, I know that I was just testing you’. Then she packed her bags and left. A week later, she came back with two big diamonds. I said they were worth £50,000 each.”
The woman left the auction house, and a week later, Joanna received a phone call from her, inviting her to afternoon tea at Brown’s in Mayfair.
Joanna Hardy is a jewellery specialist and a regular expert on Antiques Roadshow (Image: BBC)
The woman told her she wanted Joanna to see her vaults in Geneva.
She explained: “I went with no idea as to why I was going.
“And there she showed me this real ruby ring, a pair of fantastic emerald drop Cartier 1925 art deco ear pendants, a beautiful ruby and diamond bracelet and this single-stone diamond ring in a Cartier mount, which was the size of my thumbnail. And it was bright, candy floss pink.
“I’d never seen a pink diamond before in my life. They are extremely rare. Still, to this day, it’s the best diamond I’ve ever seen for colour. It turned out the lady was an Indian princess.”
Joanna later took one of the items to auction, where the owner made an eye-watering profit.
The expert said: “Her diamond – which had been in that vault for maybe 50 years – was a similar pink to the Williamson Pink in the Queen’s Cartier flower brooch.
“At auction, we sold it for £6 million, breaking a world record for pink diamonds at the time. It was amazing.”
Joanna is a British fine jewellery specialist, dealer and broadcaster who is a regular on Antiques Roadshow and on the board of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain.