Faberge eggs
Malcolm Forbes started his Faberge collection in the 1950s and ended up with 12 eggs. He had the first surprise Hen egg - my favourite- which Tsar Alexander III -Sasha had made for his wife Dagmar (Maria Feodorovna) in 1885. Inside was a ring but Sasha wrote saying he wanted it changed to a pendant.
The Hen egg worth about $120 in 1920 and by 2004 was valued between $3-4 million. Forbes also owned the coronation egg - gold with a gold carriage inside valued between $18 -24 million in 2004. The other eggs were
the orange tree egg,
the 15th anniversary egg,
Lily of the valley egg,
the cockeral blue egg,
the resurrection egg,
the rennaisance egg,
the three leaf clover egg
and another blue egg with a clock.
That's ten not sure what the other two are called.
Malcolm Forbe's sons decided to auction the eggs, but energy tycoon Victor Vekselberg did a deal and paid close to the valuation price of between $80-$120 million.
and bought nine of the eggs and returned them to the Kremlin Armoury. At the time the Kremlin had 10 eggs, five are in the Virginia Musuem of fine arts, Queen Elisabeth owns three, Prince Rainier of Monaco owns one. It is the blue serpent egg. The whereabouts of 8 eggs are unknown. Others are in private hands in the US and Switzerland. These are known as the Imperial Surprise eggs and only 51 were made and are unsigned as they were commissioned pieces. Faberge would take up to a year to make an exquisite piece and each one held a surprise. Dagmar's brother King George I of Greece had a Faberge egg, not an Imperial egg, which went to auction a few years ago. It was valued at $50,000 but I don't know what it went for.
So with 8 missing since 1918, one has to keep a sharp eye out at the carboot & garage sales. Just in case.