Woman’s £10 flea-market ring was sold for £656,750 after diamond discovery

The "Tenner" Diamond. Sold for £656,750 (Image: Sotheby's) Imagine slipping a cheap, grubby cocktail ring onto your finger, wearing it regularly for many long decades, and never suspecting that it hides a fortune. That is precisely what happened to one woman, who paid just ten pounds for a dull-looking ring at a West London car boot sale, which Americans call a flea market. Thirty years later, a local jeweller's glance, a detailed laboratory report and a frenzied London bidding room transformed her bargain into a viral story that made international headlines. This article explains where the ring came from, what experts discovered, and why such a find is possible.How a £10 bargain at a West London car boot sale in Isleworth led to an unexpected diamond discoveryIn the late 1980s, according to Sotheby's, a woman was browsing a car boot sale in Isleworth, West London, when a box of costume jewellery caught her eye. She was drawn to some bangles, and paid little attention to a cocktail ring holding a single clear stone. Sigee writes that the ring sat in a rusty old setting and looked dull and filthy, nothing special at all. The seller wanted twelve pounds for the whole lot, and the buy...