The original pearl Baroda Pearl Necklace was made up of seven strands of matching pearls in terms of size, shape, color, luster and surface quality. Total number of pearls (approximate) in the necklace is adjudged to be 330 pearls, as could be judged from the photographs of Maharaja’s successor.
In 1948, , the Maharaja dismantled the necklace, and got his jewelry designers, most probably Cartier's @cartier to select 68 of the finest and largest pearls from the original necklace, and reconstitute them as a two-stranded or two-tiered pearl necklace.
The two-tiered pearl necklace consists of 33 pearls in the inner row and 35 pearls in the outer row, and the two rows are joined by a cushion-cut diamond Cartier clasp. Thus the reconstituted two-stranded Baroda Pearl Necklace is made up of the most perfect of perfect spherical pearls from the original Baroda Pearl necklace,and is one of the most expensive pearl necklaces in the world today. The two-stranded pearl necklace suddenly made it appearance at a Christie's auction in New York in April 2007, and set a world record price of $7.1 million ( nearly 40 crores of rupees) , the highest ever realized by a pearl necklace at an auction.
