The Auction Season's Real Gems

Some place on a Gulf of Panama shoreline in the mid sixteenth century, somebody found a flawlessly framed, pear-molded 50 or more carat pearl. Another person named it la Peregrina (the Wanderer), and Mary Tudor of England got it as a commitment blessing in 1554. (She was 38 and kicked the bucket four years after the fact.)  Rulers of Spain, beginning with her significant other, Philip II, clutched it for quite a while. At that point, in 1969, at Sotheby's in London, the Welsh on-screen character Richard Burton got it for his significant other at the time, the Oscar-winning performing artist Elizabeth Taylor.