Secret drawer jewellery sells for £10,000 at auction
- Published
A pair of cufflinks - featuring rhinoceros and lions - sold for £2,000
Jewellery found by an auctioneer in a secret drawer in an old chest has sold for almost £10,000.
The chest came into John Taylors auction house in Louth, Lincolnshire, as part of a deceased person's estate.
Staff noticed a hidden drawer which contained about 30 items of jewellery, most with animal pictures on - called reverse crystal intaglios.
Half of the items were sold at the auction, including a pair of cufflinks which made £2,000.
The drawers, which have a secret compartment just beneath the top, sold for just £45
Auctioneer James Laverack said reverse crystal intaglios were a popular form of jewellery "for both gentlemen and ladies in the late Victorian and Edwardian period".
"They use natural crystal to form a lens and then carved out the underside and then painted it, to give a 3D image of dogs, tigers, rhinoceroses," he added.
The chest of drawers sold for just £45.
The remainder of the items are due to be auctioned on 6 March.
Most of the jewellery found has pictures of animals on, like this tiger pin - which sold for £1,100
- Published26 January 2018
