Alun Thorne: Romancing the stone
Feb 19 2010 By Alun Thorne
The tale of two enigmatic artefacts with something of a cursed history have been making the headlines this week.
The first concerns one of the great archaeological finds of the 20th century while the other is a tawdry tale of deceit and job losses that led to the collapse of a leading Midland company.
After years of painstaking investigation, scientists examining the DNA of Tutankhamun have discovered that the so-called ‘Boy King’ not only cursed those who discovered his tomb but also lived a painful and tortured existence himself.
Behind the breathtaking golden veneer of his death mask, it would appear that the king who ruled the Egyptian empire around 1300BC suffered from a painful degenerative bone disorder, a club foot and malaria – reason enough one would imagine to curse anyone with the temerity to disturb his final resting place.
The other is the latest chapter in the colourful story of the Gem of Tanzania – the mysterious gemstone that lies at the heart of the collapse of Wrekin Construction which went out of business last year with the loss of more than 400 jobs and debts of £40 million.
This week the gemstone, which in its lifetime has been valued at anywhere between £100 and £11 million, was finally bought in auction by Midlands entrepreneur Tim Watts for the princely sum of £8,010.
The gem came to prominence following the collapse of Wrekin after it was discovered that the ruby had been exchanged for half the company’s shares after being valued at £11 million and was being used to prop up the construction firm’s ailing balance sheet. The valuation turned out to be a fraud after the Post spoke to the Italian valuers who said they had never heard of the Gem of Tanzania and that they were closed for the summer on the supposed date of the valuation.
Wrekin’s administrator Ernst & Young then auctioned off the ruby and Mr Watts, whose company is a creditor of the collapsed firm to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds, submitted the highest bid and acquired the ruby for the cost of a set of new tyres on his Bentley.
Mr Watts told the Financial Times that he believes by breaking up the uncut stone he could make anything from £200,000 to £2 million.
And as head of the Aim-listed Network Group which controls the Pertemps recruitment business, and with a reputation as one of the region’s shrewder business minds, it is difficult to argue against him. But the history of the gem would suggest that this may be an investment that comes with a significant health warning.
Prior to playing a central role in the rise and dramatic fall of one of the region’s best known firms, the 2.1kg Gem of Tanzania previously belonged to a businessman called Trevor Michael Hart Jones who was exposed by Newsnight as being behind a £100m scheme selling a ‘cure for Aids’.
The scam came to light after actor Richard E Grant saw a brochure from Hart Jones’ company, Commercial African Resources Development, which showed African patients being injected with the serum and showing marked improvement within 20 minutes.
The gem then passed to a South African who brought it into the UK and allegedly sold it to Wrekin boss David Unwin for £300,000. He then introduced it onto the company’s balance sheet through his holding company Tamar.
Before the auction various experts offered their views on the gem and the general consensus appeared to be that the Gem of Tanzania was more valuable as a curio than a precious stone, although Mr Watts has now been told that at the very least there are 20 smaller rubies on the surface that can be extracted and sold.
Whatever its true value, and this will only be discovered once the rock is broken up, the gem has brought nothing but bad luck for those who have come in contact with it, be it the poor unfortunates injected with goats serum or the betrayed workers at Wrekin Construction.
Now I’m not suggesting that Mr Watts is heading the same way as poor old Lord Canarvon, but if things start going bump in the night then he can’t say he hasn’t been warned.
