A gold and diamond Cartier cigarette case went up for auction at Sotheby’s in London today.
Estimated to sell somewhere between 8 to 12 thousand British pounds,
An exquisite item, what makes it unique is that it may be evidence of a brief romance in 1924 between then Prince Edward and a newsly divorced silent screen actress Pinna Nesbit.
The two met when the Prince visited the US in 1924
Inside the case is the engraving “Pinna 1924 love EP”
Sotheby’s says Edward used the initials when he was Prince of Wales.
Pinna Nesbit was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1896.
She later starred in 17 black and white silent films, many of which were melodramas.
Sotheby’s says F Scott Fitzgerald described Nesbit in “A Life in Letters” as a “damned attractive woman”. An article in the Sun newspaper of New York in 1926 described her as the “woman who won the heart of the Prince of Wales.
Nesbit was married three times and she met the Prince between her second and third husbands. There was much dancing together but it is not known if the romance went any further.
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