Golden heritage and glamour

Strauss & Co is presenting two jewellery sales this month. The Africa Gold Edition online sale, which kick-started on May 16 and ends on May 26, celebrates the enduring beauty and cultural legacy of gold. The Grand Edition, a live sale on May 26, will showcase exceptional jewels, including loose diamonds. Each sale offers a distinct focus on lustrous gold jewellery and the precious mineral world, highlighting masterful craftsmanship and the natural splendour of earth’s rarest materials.

Gold’s history is as old as civilisation, believed to have originated during a process known as supernova nucleosynthesis, occurring when a star implodes, scattering its atoms across the cosmos before forming part of the Earth’s crust.

Over millennia, these particles settled in deposits across the globe, including beneath what became Johannesburg, Egoli — our City of Gold, tracing its origins to 1886, when gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand. What followed was a gold rush that transformed the city’s future, a significant dent in the story of modernity.

Africa Gold Edition honours gold’s lasting legacy through a careful selection of necklaces, rings and bracelets. Highlights include an 18ct yellow gold cuff weighing 31.7g (estimate R40,000-R50,000) — a true piece of grandeur with cross-hatching texture and polished borders. Another highlight is a classic bracelet on a curb chain, adorned with four engraved fob seals, a teardrop carnelian charm, a tube-set engraved amethyst charm and an SA R2 gold coin dated 1963 — total weight 47.60g, with an estimate of R 40,000-R60,000. Also on offer is a diamond-encrusted necklace, set with 511 pavé diamonds on infinity links, weighing 56g, with an estimate of R100,000-R120,000 — this is a statement of grace and luxury.

As gold has long been revered for its inherent beauty, durability, and cultural significance, so too have the other precious gems, notably diamonds, tanzanite, pearls, sapphires and rubies.

The Grand Edition sale, which celebrates grand jewels embellished with gems and gold, offers pieces of unparalleled elegance. Among the highlights is an extraordinary engagement ring featuring a 5.73ct cushion-cut diamond, flanked by about 2.80ct of trillion-cut diamonds, set on a yellow gold band weighing 6.90g; as well as a handmade, rectangular 22ct yellow gold jewellery box (estimate R5m-R6m), crafted in the 1950s by SA Goldware for storing treasured pieces, this is a modernist piece with functional elegance.

For those with a passion for rare gems, The Grand Edition offers a stunning square-cut emerald ring, weighing about 2.85ct, surrounded by 2.28ct of round brilliant-cut diamonds in a multi-tier cluster setting (estimate R60,000-R90,000) as well as a loose natural vivid yellow emerald-cut diamond (estimate R6m-R8m), evaluated and graded by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).

The selection is rich with hidden treasures and includes a surprise collection made by renowned London-based designer, Efema Cole, whose pieces were worn by the singer Lauryn Hill, as she made her debut at the 2025 Met Gala as a guest of co-chair Lewis Hamilton. Cole creates sculptural, tactile adornment inspired by geological processes and childhood memories of gold-rich Ghana, working exclusively with ethically sourced African gemstones. In 2022, she was appointed the first curator of diaspora jewellery at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK. She is also one of the invited jewellers whose work is featured in the museum’s renowned jewellery collection — the most comprehensive in the world — alongside pieces by widely acclaimed designers such as Peter Chang. 

Africa Gold Edition and The Grand Edition celebrate the elemental beauty and enduring worth of gold and jewels — treasures born of stardust, anchored in the earth and unearthed in Johannesburg.