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One of the more unique lots at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction on November 29 in Hong Kong is likely to be a set of poker chips made by the Swedish artist and jeweller Kristian Ståhl.
The outer frames of the 120 chips are made of 18K white gold and are set with a total of 5,160 calibrated top-quality gems, including diamonds, rubies and sapphires. But what makes the set truly unique is that each chip was sliced from a 1 million year old meteorite.
Stahl, who gained recognition in the global luxury industry in 2004 with The Tailormade Audi project, is an artist, jeweller and gem dealer who creates ‘out of the box’ luxury projects. He said the idea for the gem-set gaming chips came about after he had crafted a set of dice made from Siberian mammoth ivory, which were successfully auctioned at Sotheby’s Hermitage Gala Dinner in London in 2010.
“The creation of the gaming set has been a long process,” Ståhl recalled. “However, it was only when I encountered a piece of meteorite from a remote part of northern Sweden called Muonionalusta, that I hit upon the idea of how to make each of the chips truly unique, by integrating in each chip a circular slice of etched meteorite,” he said.
“The meteorite crashed into a remote part of northern Sweden, called Muonionalusta, almost one million years ago,” Ståhl noted. It’s made of iron and nickel, along with some other exotic metals and rare earth minerals.”The appeal and the challenge were too exciting to pass up,” said Stahl.
“Hong Kong is the right location to auction this unique set,” Ståhl said. “There’s a collector out there who is going to buy this set, knowing that this piece is a sure bet and not a gamble.” The set is estimated to sell for $100,000 – $150,000.
