Pope Paul VI Diamond Jewelry Once Owned By Evel Knievel Available for $1.9 Million

Pope Paul VI's Diamond Cross and Ring in Case

It was first owned by Pope Paul VI (1963 – 1978) and after changing hands numerous times it last appeared three years ago on eBay. Now the diamond pectoral cross and ring has reappeared. This time at M.S. Rau Antiques in New Orleans where the items are now on sale for $1.9 million.

Did I mention that daredevil Evel Knievel once owned the jewels?

“Not only are these two pieces historically significant, they are remarkable due to the fact that Papal jewelry rarely comes on the market,” said Bill Rau, owner of the fine art and antiques business.

Pope Paul VI’s Diamond Cross

The intricately carved 18k yellow gold cross is 7 inches in length and decorated with diamonds and Colombian emeralds. Twelve mine-cut diamonds, ranging in size from 3 to 8 carats with VVS and VC clarity, run the length and width of the cross totaling more than 60 carats. The emeralds and smaller diamonds fill in the 18k carvings of scrolls and leaves along the edges of the cross.

The cross bears a stamp of “Cassio,” which refers to Cassio Studios, one of the artisan ateliers at the service of the Vatican, Bill Rau said. It is valued by the antique dealer at $1.25 million.

Pectoral crosses are given to clergy who attain the rank of bishop or higher.

Pope Paul VI’s Diamond Ring

The ring is centered with a 13-carat white diamond surrounded by 14 smaller round diamonds totaling 3.5 carats. It is set in platinum and flanked by two diamond pavé squares on either side inset with a cross made of rubies. It is valued at $650,000.

Both the ring and cross are engraved with the Christian Chi Rho symbol, which indicates that both were most probably made by Vatican jewelers in the early 1900's with existing jewels from the Vatican's own collection, Bill Rau said.

According to documents provided by the Vatican, Pope Paul VI made an historic visit to the UN to address the General Assembly in 1965 and at that time requested that these two pieces of jewelry be auctioned with the proceeds going to human relief funds.

The auction took two years to prepare and was handled by Parke-Bernet, the nation's largest fine art auction house until it was acquired by Sotheby's in the late 1960's. An eight-page brochure about these two pieces was printed for this unusual sale which took place in November, 1967. Chicago jeweler Harry Levinson bought both pieces of jewelry for $64,000 and the entire amount was divided between four UN agencies.

After that, the two pieces of jewelry were bought and sold several times. At one point they were even owned by Evel Knievel. According to published reports, the items were last placed on public sale by Perry’s Emporium, a Wilmington, N.C., jewelry store, whose owner, Alan Perry, placed the pieces on eBay with a starting bid of $850,000. Perry reportedly was selling the jewelry on behalf of a widow whose husband had purchased the ring and cross in the 1970s.

There is no word on whether they ever sold. A call made to Alan Perry was not returned.

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eBay Pumps Up Fashion Business by Hiring Andrea Linett as Creative Director

Andrea Linett

Internet retailer eBay has gone to the publishing industry for a high-profile name to lead its multibillion-dollar fashion business.

San Jose, Calif.-based company hired Andrea Linett as creative director of eBay Fashion. Linett will help drive the creative vision for the fashion marketplace. She will be responsible for advancing the image, voice and editorial style for the marketplace’s clothing, shoes and accessories category.

Linett, a 20-year veteran of fashion publishing is best known as the co-founder and former creative director of Lucky, the award-winning magazine about shopping and style. She also founded the personal style and shopping website, I want to be her!. Previously, she served as a fashion writer and editor at Harper’s Bazaar, and the fashion and beauty editor at Sassy magazine. Over the course of her career, she has worked as a stylist for commercials and music videos, and as a consultant for fashion brands including Il Bisonte, Foley & Corinna and Tenthousandthings.

Linett will steer the creative direction and design of eBay Fashion—including Fashion Vault, eBay’s destination for limited time sales—consult on ongoing site enhancements, and oversee the thematic, photography and casting for all editorial merchandising and original content at fashion.ebay.com, , the world’s largest online marketplace and a global mobile commerce leader said in a statement Thursday.

The eBay Fashion website trades in more than $5 billion in gross merchandise volume worldwide annually and has 10 million active fashion shoppers in the U.S. It is a leading online destination for clothing, shoes and accessories with more than 20 million average daily fashion listings. A pair of shoes is sold every seven seconds, a dress every 10 seconds and a pair of jeans every 24 seconds.

Last year, eBay introduced significant enhancements to the shopping experience with the launch of fashion.ebay.com, a dedicated home for fashion on the Marketplace—including new image similarity technology and browsing capabilities.

Judge Rejects Tiffany’s False Advertising Claim Against eBay

For the second time in two years, luxury jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co. failed to persuade a federal court that eBay deceived its customers when they bought counterfeit Tiffany jewelry from the online auction site.

U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in New York dismissed Tiffany’s final claim of false-advertising, saying “there is no extrinsic evidence indicating that the challenged advertisements were misleading or confusing,” Bloomberg News reports.

The same judge in 2008 rejected Tiffany’s trademark infringement and false-advertising claims. An appeals court in April upheld most of the judge’s ruling while reinstating a single false-advertising claim. Tiffany first brought on the lawsuit in 2004.

“We are pleased with today’s ruling, which settles the last remaining claim before the trial court in this case,” Michelle Fang, eBay’s associate general counsel, reportedly said in a statement.

The case has been viewed as a benchmark challenge in the United States to Internet-based companies such as eBay, Google Inc and others that may claim merely to be hosting services, and not responsible for users' trademark violations.

Tiffany accused eBay of advertising the sale of its goods through ads on its Web site, and through sponsored links on search engines, which would sometimes link to its own website and exhort readers to "Find Tiffany items at low prices," Reuters reports.

Sullivan agreed with Tiffany that eBay knew "a portion" of the goods being sold were fake. But he said Tiffany failed to show that eBay's advertisements actually misled customers or necessarily implied that all Tiffany products sold on its Web site were genuine, Reuters reports. Sullivan also pointed to eBay efforts to combat fraud, which the company has said costs up to $20 million a year.

Amazon and eBay to Tap High-End Fashion Markets

Online giants Amazon.com and eBay are both targeting high-end apparel, shoes and accessories retail segments.

The new initiative for Amazon will rival established high-end online fashion sites Yoox and Net-A-Porter, according to a story in the Financial Times (subscription required). It will improve the experience for shoppers with more viewing options for clothing and will offer free returns for clothing items of more than $25, tapping into the success of a similar program from Zappos, the shoe Web site Amazon acquired this past November. The company reportedly said it will be ready to launch the new site by October, in time for the holiday shopping season.

Meanwhile, eBay relaunched its clothing sales under the eBay fashion brand in April, adding videos and comments from fashion stylists and a “find similar items” image-matching feature, the FT reports. It has also launched a “fashion outlet” site in the U.K. and created “storefronts” in the U.S. with retailers including Brooks Brothers and Timberland selling excess and discounted stock directly to buyers.

Here is a link to the story on the Zacks Web site.