Royal earrings up for grabs on eBay

Gold earrings thay belonged to the late Princess Margaret are up for auction barely a month after a UK buyer purchased them at a sale at the London auction house Christie's.

The new forum for the gold, diamond and emerald earrings is not an established and renowned auction house, however, but the hugely successful dotcom eBay.

Jill Ho, who apparently paid £6,600 for the earrings, has listed them with an undisclosed reserve price of more than £8,000, according to the Evening Standard's This Is Money. Since appearing on the site about four days ago, bidding for the lot has reached £6,700.

Lord Linley and his sister, Lady Sarah Chatto, inherited Princess Margaret's personal jewellery after her death in 2002.

Lord Linley, a director of Christie's, claimed that the controversial sale of some of the princess' possessions, including a luxury holiday home on the island of Mustique, was necessary to meet inheritance tax demands.

Mrs Ho told the Evening Standard that she would be "very happy" to keep the earrings for herself if the eBay auction did not rein in a bidder willing to pay what she has in mind.