Even if you're only slightly familiar with the story of Elizabeth Taylor's life and love affair with jewelry, chances are you've heard of the famous 69.42 carat, pear-shaped Taylor-Burton Diamond. What you might not know is the difficulty Burton went to in order to buy it for Taylor in 1969. According to The Adventurine, Burton sent a proxy to the stone's auction with a maximum bid of $1 million (keep in mind, the most a diamond had ever sold for before this was less than $400,000). Cartier outbid that ceiling by just 50,000 and won, but a day later Burton had his lawyers contacted Cartier and bought the diamond.
Cartier displayed the gem for a week to the public before sending it off (with two other briefcases as decoys) to the couple's private yacht in Monaco, just in time for Taylor to wear it to Princess Grace's 40th birthday. It is estimated that Burton paid $1.5 million for what became known as the Taylor-Burton Diamond, which Taylor kept and wore until three years after the couple divorced for the second and final time in 1976. She then put it up for auction and sold it for approximately $3 million (via History.com).
