The thing that got me thinking was the picture is airbrushed within an inch of its life and the picture almost look like it has been colourised in the way you sometimes see old pictures. The Queen looks like a different person. Then when looking closely the rubies are really quite huge! Rubies of that size are rare and therefore extremely, extremely valuable. The Royal Family of Johor is very, very wealthy but nonetheless the value of this tiara would be huge given the number of large rubies it contains.
Johor has a fabulous collection, from what I can see the current Queen has access to 6 impressive tiaras and her only daughter also has a tiara, which may just be a loan from the main line.
The modern ruby tiara of the Queen of Johor is very impressive but I was wondering whether the tiara is really a ruby tiara.
Looking at a picture of the Queen's only daughter Princess Aminah wearing the same tiara, in what is not an airbrushed picture, the colour of the stones are quite different to how they appear when seen in the airbrushed photo, they look purple/pinkish, which got me thinking they could be amethyst or pink sapphires or topazes.
Views/Thoughts?
All pictures are from the TM website.
1