Holt’s Auctioneers is selling a unique gold, pearl and diamond necklace in the form of a .223 cartridge.
Chris Beaumont commented why this one-off necklace caught his eye: “This has to be one of the most unusual items we’ve had through our auction room for a long time. It is nothing less than we would expect from one of our most imaginative gunmakers - Giles Whittome, the man responsible for the extraordinary 2-bore falling block sporting rifle he built for the Royal Armouries to commemorate the Second Millennium. The evocative ‘bullet’ shape of a pearl was irresistible to the gunmaker in him and this unique little bibelot eventuated!”
English gunmaker Giles Whittome explained how he came by the natural pearl: “In the late fifties I was living and working for in Mtwara, a seaport of Tanganyika, eastern Africa. My house was 50 yards from the beach, and the local fishermen used to bump up their income by dragging up the odd oyster, and they used to offer me any pearls they found. There is absolutely no way that this one is cultivated, indeed they were thinking of throwing it away because of its odd shape. As a big game hunter, I wanted this because of the bullet shape (fairly close to a bullet from a .223) and when I eventually came back to England I paired it with an empty .223 cartridge case and gave them to Geoffrey Turk, the society jeweller, and asked him to make something of it. The result is hallmarked as 18 carat and with Geoffrey's initials. The chain is also 18 carat. The primer is a faceted diamond. The cartridge case is also gold.”
Estimate: £800-1,200.
For sale in London on Thursday 15th September.
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