D
Da Qiao
Guest
Oct 27, 2010
Dispute over missing ring's value
By Selina Lum
THE value of a 6.41-carat diamond ring was yesterday at issue in a hearing into the suit brought by an American multimillionaire who said she lost it at the Shangri-La hotel. Testifying via video link from New York on Day Two of the hearing was a senior executive from auction house Christie's, which valued the ring at US$220,000 (S$286,400), echoing the assessment of the jeweller who had sold the ring to Ms Anne Hendricks Bass.
Ms Bass is suing the hotel for compensation for the missing ring, which she said she lost during her stay there in February last year. The hotel's gem expert, who took into account the prices of gold and diamonds, had concluded in his report that the ring was worth US$50,000 to US$60,000. Lawyer K. Anparasan, for the hotel, questioned the way in which Ms Daphne Lingon, a 17-year veteran of Christie's, arrived at her opinion, faulting her for not doing independent calculations.
But she replied that calculating the ring's value the way the hotel's valuer had done was like trying to arrive at the value of a Picasso painting by totting up the cost of the frame and the canvas. The estimate, she said, had to factor in the creator of the piece and its demand in the marketplace. She added that in this case, the fact that the ring was made by famed Parisian jeweller Joel Arthur Rosenthal, better known as JAR, was the largest factor in deciding its value.
