Sapphires discovered hidden in a Derbyshire house have sold for 17,800 pounds at a Lichfield auction house in the UK on Monday, March 27.
Yet the vivid blue stones have lain unseen for years—and may even have ended up in the bin!
They were an example of the sparkling treasures found squirreled away at the late Margaret Hood’s home in Littleover—a surprise cache of jewelry so splendid it has been dubbed “The Littleover Hoard.”
Relatives and carers visiting her home had no idea that each time they crossed the threshold they were entering a kingdom of hidden treasure.
Most staggering of all, one precious sapphire ring was tightly wrapped up in a supermarket carrier bag, swathed in socks, and left hanging on a porch hook by the door.
For Peggy—as she preferred to be known—had squirreled away a lifetime of possessions, including the sapphire and diamond ring left hanging in the porch sporting an unheated certified 4.16-carat Burmese sapphire and a pair of early 20th-century sapphire and diamond earrings.
The ring sold for 11,000 pounds after it went under the hammer with Richard Winterton Auctioneers at The Lichfield Auction Centre as Lot 6 on Monday, March 27.
The preceding lot in the same auction, the earrings—featuring unheated certified sapphires totaling 5.60 carats, one Burmese (now Myanmar) and the other from Ceylon (Sri Lanka)—sold for 6,800 pounds.
The jewels tick all the crucial boxes of origin, no heat treatment, and antique pedigree and caused a stir amongst gemologists and jewelry collectors.
But they are just two dazzling examples of the treasures tucked away by Peggy, who had two great-grandchildren.
When she died in October 2022, just a month after her 90th birthday, the grandmother of four was affected by the onset of dementia.
Coupled with Peggy’s tendency to collect things and her somewhat secretive nature, it provided a real-life treasure hunt for her children, daughter Sue Bird, 66, from Mickleover, and Jonathan Hood, 56, a company director who lives near Ashbourne.
“We didn’t know mum had got all this jewelry—she never told us and it was only by chance we found it all,” said Bird, a former exam paper coordinator in the engineering and technology faculty at the University of Derby.
“We knew she had inherited some jewelry some decades previously from an old family friend but we had no idea as to the extent.
“The sapphire ring was in an orange Sainsbury’s bag wrapped up in a big green rambling sock inside another bag and then wrapped in five pop socks.
“It was hanging on the wall by the door and we'd all been coming and going, completely oblivious that this stunning ring was literally hidden in plain sight.
“It was after discovering the ring we had to say ‘right, do not throw anything away.’”
Inside her safe they found an Alabaster and Wilson sapphire and diamond brooch—selling at auction for 1,200 pounds—and a gold and enamel sweetheart ring reading “Hope” that fetched 900 pounds.
Other discoveries included a pearl necklace with an emerald and diamond clasp that sold for 14,500 pounds.
Hundreds watched online as bidders on the internet and over the phone battled it out for the treasures, with online bidders eventually winning the sapphires and the pearls.
The siblings said they were “just delighted” with how the sale went and that it was “very exciting.”
“We could easily have thrown some of them away and never been any the wiser,” Bird said. “It’s an amazing story, really.”
