Jewelry News

Midas Touches Monopoly

May 29, 2009

When famous jewelry artist, Sidney Mobell, went from designing diamond jewelry for his list of celebrity clients to creating glittering objects out of the mundane, little did he know that his stunning creations would make their way into the halls of the Smithsonian.

Known for being both intricate and outrageous, Mobell makes every day objects into stratospherically expensive replicas laden with only the finest gold, diamonds and gemstones. His most famous piece, a $2 million Monopoly board, weighs 32 pounds, includes 60 diamonds, 47 sapphires, and 24 rubies. Each of the 28 title cards is gold plated, the tokens are 18-karat gold, and 42 diamonds display the numbers on the dice.

That's quite a community chest!

Other works include mousetraps of solid gold studded with a wedge of pave-diamond cheese, a diamond-encrusted gold cell phone, an 18-karat gold pacifier with 8 round brilliant diamonds, and a gold fishing reel studded with 5.1 carats in diamonds, 237 sapphires, and 253 rubies complete with a solid gold fish hook.

Now 19 of his pieces are touring the country, giving folks the opportunity to look at precious metals and gemstones in an entirely new way. Details of the tour are still developing, but if you find yourself in Washington D.C., you can catch a glimpse of their Modell collection of bejeweled wonders at the museum's National Gem Collection.

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