Someday, it will be a gem of a tale for Miriam Tucker. For now, it’s still slightly embarrassing.
Tucker had purchased a $20 glass of champagne at a Tampa Woman’s Club charity event. Most glasses had a cubic zirconia resting in the bottom, but one lucky winner would have a one-carat diamond worth $5,000 to sweeten her champagne. The only problem is that Tucker accidentally swallowed her jewel while sipping her champagne.
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According to the Tampa Bay Tribune, the jewelers from the Continental Wholesale Diamonds who had donated the diamond were going table to table looking for the real gem and turning up empty handed. “We started to panic because we knew we put a diamond in there,” said Andrew Meyer, a partner at Continental Wholesale Diamonds. Eventually Tucker confessed what had happened.
Luckily, the 80-year old had a colonoscopy scheduled and with her doctor’s help, the stone was retrieved from her colon. After the procedure, Tucker and her daughter took the diamond to be cleaned, tested and verified. Tucker now plans on giving the diamond to her granddaughter as a family heirloom. “(It’ll) stay in the family with a story to go with it,” Tucker said.
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