** THE PICTURES BELOW REALLY DO NOT DO OUR CARDS JUSTICE.  EACH CARD IS PRINTED ON PEARLESCENT CARD AND HAND DECORATED WITH DIAMOND GLITTER WHICH MAKES THEM SPARKLE LIKE THE REAL THING **

Her Majesty The Queen's Jewel Collection   Individual 210mm sq card WOA143

Pictured on the front of this card are a selection of the magnificent jewels owned by Her Majesty The Queen, many of which have been passed down from generation to generation.  The Queen and past members of the Royal Family have been captured in paintings, photographs and film over the years wearing these priceless jewels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mehG3drm6A

Queen Victoria’s Collet Necklace and Earrings   Individual 150mm sq card WOA137 (also appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143)

This necklace and earrings were made in 1858 and add up to a total of 161 carats, the nine largest stones of which weigh between 8.25 and 11.25 carats each. The pendant stone, known as the Lahore diamond was a present to Queen Victoria by the Honourable East India Company in 1851. Queen Victoria wore the collet necklace and earrings for her official 1897 Diamond Jubilee Portrait (although the photograph had actually been taken in 1893). Her Majesty the Queen wore the necklace and earrings at her Coronation in 1953.

Queen Victoria’s Small Diamond Crown Appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143

This small diamond crown was made for Queen Victoria in 1870 to wear as a light and comfortable alternative to the much heavier Imperial State Crown. The small crown covered her widow’s veil which she wore after the untimely death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert. The tiny diamond and silver crown, only 3.7 inches (9.4cm) high, was often work by Queen Victoria in her later years and was placed on her coffin during her funeral.

Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee Necklace Individual 150mm sq card WOA138 (also appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143)

In 1887 the 'Women of the British Empire’ each gave between a penny and a pound to provide a celebratory memorial for Queen Victoria's fifty years on the throne. Part of the money raised was used to commission a large equestrian statue of Prince Albert, the Prince Consort which the Queen unveiled on Smith's Lawn, Windsor, on 12 May 1890, and the remainder was spent on this necklace, which was presented to Queen Victoria on 24 June 1887. The design is of graduated diamond trefoils, each with a pearl centre. The centrepiece is a quatrefoil of diamonds with a pearl centre and drop pendant. Surmounting it is a pearl and diamond crown. It is possible to detach the centrepiece and wear it as a pendant, but no one has ever done so. Queen Victoria left the necklace to the Crown in 1901.

Queen Victoria wore this necklace in her official Diamond Jubilee photograph in 1897.

The Grand Duchess Vladimir of Russia’s Tiara Individual 150mm sq card WOA137 (also appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143)

The Grand Duchess Vladimir commissioned a Russian jeweller to make her this tiara of fifteen interlaced circles in 1890 with each round containing a swinging oriental pearl.

The tiara then spent many years holed up in a wall at the ransacked Vladimir Palace after the Russian Revolution, in 1917. The Grand Duchess escaped the country finally ending up in Zurich in 1919 but had left the majority of her jewel collection in the secret hiding place. She enlisted the help of a young British Embassy employee called Stopford who smuggled the jewels out of Russia and delivered them to her in Switzerland.

In 1921, Queen Mary bought this tiara from Princess Nicholas of Greece, the daughter of the Grand Duchess Vladimir, after she had inherited it on her mother’s death. Queen Mary had the last fifteen of the Cambridge emeralds mounted as drops so that they could be interchanged with the pearls. Her Majesty The Queen inherited the tiara in 1953.

Queen Mary’s ‘Girls of Great Britain and Ireland' Tiara Individual 150mm sq card WOA135 (also appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143)

In 1893 Lady Eve Greville helped raise money from the ‘Girls of Great Britain and Ireland' to purchase a wedding gift for Princess May of Teck, the future Queen Mary. They collected more than £5,000, and after buying this diamond tiara from Garrard, the surplus money was given, at Princess Mary’s request, to a fund that had just been set up to aid the widows and orphans of the men lost after the sinking of HMS Victoria.

The tiara has a diamond festoon-and-scroll design. On occasion nine large oriental pearls can be added to the diamond spikes and in addition the tiara can be set on a bandeau base of alternate round and lozenge collects between two plain bands of diamonds. The bandeau can also be worn on its own but neither the base nor the large pearls feature in this illustration.

Queen Victoria’s Bow Brooch Individual 150mm sq card WOA139 (also appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143)

In May of 1858 Garrard made a set of three bow brooches from 506 diamonds supplied by Queen Victoria. Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary both wore them at their Coronations. Queen Mary wore all three bow brooches at the same time and used to hang large oval diamond drops off them. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth can often been seen wearing one of these brooches.

Queen Mary’s Dorset Bow Brooch Individual 150mm sq card WOA139 (also appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143)

This fancy ribbon-bow brooch set with fine brilliants, made by Carrington and Company, was presented as a wedding gift to Queen Mary in 1893 by the 'County of Dorset'. Queen Mary gave the brooch to Her Majesty The Queen (then Princess Elizabeth) as a wedding present in 1947.

Queen Mary’s Kensington Bow Brooch Individual 150mm sq card WOA139 (also appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143)

In the summer of 1893, the committee of the Kensington Wedding-Gift Fund, representing the inhabitants of Kensington presented Princess Mary with this bow-shaped diamond brooch with large oriental pearl drop. It was made by Collingwood and Company and she wore the brooch at King Edward VlI’s Coronation in 1902, and at her own in 1911. A fitting symbol of her childhood spent at Kensington Palace.

The Queen’s Williamson Brooch Individual 150mm sq card WOA140 (also appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143)

Frederick A Mew of Cartier designed this brooch as a setting for the 54.5-carat rare pink diamond given to Her Majesty The Queen by John T. Williamson. Dr Williamson an eccentric Canadian, fanatical monarchist and owner of the richest diamond mine in the world sent Princess Elizabeth the finest pink diamond ever seen as a wedding gift in 1947

In March 1948, accompanied by Queen Mary, the Princess went to the Clerkenwell factory of Briefel & Lemers in East London to watch the diamond being cut into a 23.6-carat brilliant. Dr Williamson supplied a number of smaller white diamonds to be used in the platinum setting, but because he had hoped to find more pink diamonds to add to his original gift, work on the brooch was postponed until 1952. It was only then that the ‘Williamson Pink’ became the centre of a jonquil-shaped flower with curved petals of noisette-cut diamonds, a stem of baguette diamonds and two large noisette-cut diamonds as leaves. The brooch is 4.5 inches ( 11.5cm) inches long.

Queen Mary’s True Lover’s Knot Brooch Appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143

This large diamond bow has a 'true lover's knot' design with scalloped edges and pendant tassels. Her Majesty The Queen inherited the brooch from Queen Mary in 1953. The Queen wore the brooch at the wedding of Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in April 2011.

The Cullinan V Heart Brooch Individual 150mm sq card WOA142 (also appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143)

This brooch was made to show off the Cullinan V, an 18.8 -carat heart-shaped stone (one of the 102 Cullinan cleavings given to Queen Mary in 1910). The brooch also became the centre of a massive diamond and emerald stomacher the pieces of which came apart to be worn as separate brooches. The heart-shaped platinum setting and the positioning of the collets in the brooch were all expressly designed to accentuate the shape of the stone. Queen Mary wore the brooch and sometimes inserted it as centrepiece into the circlet portion of her own 1911 crown. She worn this combination for the Coronation of her son King George VI in 1937

The Cullinan VII and Cullinan VIII Brooch Individual 150mm sq card WOA142 (also appears on HM The Queen's Jewel Collection Card WOA143)

Queen Mary used the Cullinan VII, an 8.8-carat marquise-cut stone, as a pendant to the Cullinan VIII, a 6.8-carat oblong brilliant, to form a second brooch, made at the same time as the Cullinan heart brooch and very similar in design. Queen Mary always used to wear her brooches dead centre, whilst Her Majesty The Queen, who inherited the jewels in 1953 wears her brooches on the left shoulder.