Page 12 - Fake Ruby CS

The Gem

After Ernst & Young found that
Wrekin’s “ruby” could in fact be a lump
of rock possibly worth £100 it decided

to auction it to Wrekin’s creditors.

The Tanzanian Gem was found to be
worth so little that leading London

auction houses refused to put it up for
sale, and instead the administrators

Ernst & Young tried to sell the stone
through the November issue of
RocknGem Magazine and Colored Stone Magazine in the US - publications
read largely by mineral collectors and lovers of New Age crystals.

Eventually it was auctioned off to Wrekins creditors where it was sold for
£8,100. The purchaser was Tim Watts, a Midlands entrepreneur, who bought
the stone for £8,100.

“I am not an emotional man,” he says. “But I must admit, when I
first saw it I was wowed. It is the size of a football. I got a jeweller

friend of mine to look at it and he instantly spotted around 20,
beautiful deep red rubies on the surface. Now, they are going to be
worth a considerable amount of money,”

When Tim Watts, the head of Pertemps (which controls Network Group Holdings
whose Network Construction Services in Telford were owed several hundred
thousand pounds by Wrekin), a £500m-turnover recruitment business, looked
down the administrator’s list of assets he commented that:

“There were all sorts of things on it, but I didn’t want a JCB. Where on earth
would I have put one of those? But I saw the gem and recognised it would have
notoriety value and could help plug the hole left by Wrekin. I thought it would be
worth at least £10,000 so an £8,000 bid seemed about right. Even if we made
£2,000 it would be worth it. I added an extra £100 in case anyone else had the

same idea.”