Page 449 - The Case Lab Book

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.”

He estimated its value could be as much as £2m and he planned to finally find out
when the gemstone is ceremoniously “cracked open like an Easter egg” at a special

dinner for his board members.

However, after receiving pleas from enthusiasts in the United States not to break
up the gem Mr. Watts decided to keep the stone intact and add it to his portfolio of

artworks etc. saying that

“It has been suggested to me that was I to auction it there then I should put a

reserve on it of $250,000, but it could go for anything.”

But the plot thickened after an earlier valuation - by London jeweller David Davis
– emerged claiming the jewel might have a market value of $22-23? million. It was
suggested the valuation took into account the possibility of cutting up the uncut
gem into a number of high-quality stones.