The Queen is often seen with a brooch on her lapel, usually matching the colours of her outfit. Her Majesty’s brooches all have deeper meanings, revealing significant aspects of her life.
It is thought that the monarch has around 100 brooches, making her collection one of the biggest in the world.
Leading expert Max Stone from jewellers Stephen Stone analysed some of the Queen’s most valuable brooches and estimated how much they would be worth in total.
He said: “Queen Elizabeth has some of the most incredible jewels I’ve ever seen.
“Whilst it’s difficult to put a price on them, as they come with so much history and legacy, after analysing the gemstones from 25 of her most iconic brooches, I’d estimate them to be collectively worth over £90million.”
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“This one brooch alone is worth £50million.”
One of the reasons why the brooch is so valuable is the fact that it is made of the third and fourth largest stones cut from the iconic Cullinan diamond.
This huge 3,106 carat uncut diamond is understood to be the largest diamond in the world and was presented to King Edward VII in 1907.
It was then cut by Joseph Asscher in Amsterdam the next year.
In 1959, she loaned the jewel to London’s Ageless Diamond exhibition, and, in 2012, it was part of another exhibition at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
But the Queen was seen wearing the brooch for a state visit to the Netherlands in 1958, as well as for a thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s Cathedral on the year of her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
Charlotte White, Head of Design at 77 Diamonds, Europe’s largest online jeweller, told Express.co.uk more about the Queen’s Cullinan collection, saying: “The Queen inherited these legendary diamonds from her grandmother, Queen Mary, in 1953, who adapted the Delhi Durbar Tiara to make the III and IV brooches in 1912.
“The Cullinan set also includes the largest clear-cut diamond in the world, the Cullinan I, which is mounted in the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross, while the second-largest is featured in the Imperial State Crown,” she added.
