I don't know if there will be any national newspaper representatives at Sotheby's when 20 pieces of jewellery owned by the late Duchess of Windsor are auctioned later this month, but if they are bidding with a view to offering them in a readers' competition I have some advice: take care.
I speak from experience. In 1987, I bought five of Wallis Simpson's diamond, pearl and gold love gifts from Edward VIII, when they came up at Sotheby's in Geneva in a sale that saw Elizabeth Taylor outbid Prince Charles for a Prince of Wales feathers-shaped diamond clip he was desperate to present to Diana. With wonderful insouciance, Liz raised the bidding to £400,000 while reclining by her Beverly Hills pool and following the auction on a satellite link.
I had no such advantage as the Daily Mail's features editor when, desperate for something fizzy, I had fallen on an item about the sale and suggested we buy one or two pieces to offer to readers. The then editor, Sir David English, had a suave exterior but the heart of a fairground barker. Diamonds, he knew, were a girl's best friend, and under him the Mail was branding itself as the paper for women. When the sale was over, Lord Rothermere's wallet was £200,000 lighter.
I bought a pearl necklace (£32,200), a gold panther brooch (£30,000), a ruby and sapphire brooch with the initials W and E entwined (£40,000), silver rings (£12,000) and an 18-carat gold and gem-set powder compact (£73,600). This booty was smuggled back through Heathrow's green channel by a heavily perspiring Richard Kay, now the paper's diary editor.
The Mail offered readers the opportunity to win "The Most Romantic Jewels In The World". I was astonished by the famous and wealthy women who were crazy to get their hands on them. When I showed Farrah Fawcett the compact, she fell on her hotel bed in ecstasy and pleaded to have it; an American cosmetics heiress got ratty when I wouldn't slip her the panther brooch for a fortune paid into a Swiss bank account in my name. Jane Asher and Marie Helvin modelled the rocks and Anne Diamond drooled over them on breakfast TV.
I doubt there will be newspaper bidders for this latest Wallis cache – DVDs have long been the preferred freebie marketing tool. I can't help thinking, though, that old Chris de Burgh concerts don't have quite the glamour of the duchess's jewels.
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