Edward Green took to the jewellery trade like Chris Hoy took to a bike, reaching the pinnacle and becoming the Crown Jeweller himself, providing his polished eye to HM The Queen. He told Steven Raeburn why he is taking his expertise out of the bright lights and into the musty world of executries, launcing a service only he could provide.

Executry is often the forgotten corner of chamber work. Never sexy enough for its own TV show, and rarely visible enough to make the news, yet, like house purchase, it is the means by which most (law abiding) people have their first direct experience with the law. And once you find out what Edward Green does for a living, you’ll realise it can be one of the most intriguing. Discretion is everything, so the source of the following story Edward related to the Firm must remain anonymous. However, upon the death of his mother, who had accumulated a fascinating store of objects d’art throughout her life, our client X found himself burdened with the unenviable task of disposing of the estate, a matter both time consuming and distressing. A few calls were placed to local auction houses, and in amongst the random clearance –after which the majority of items remained unclaimed, ultimately destined for a job lot donation- one item, a painting, was placed at auction in north England with a reserve of some £800, which it failed to meet and was withdrawn. The piece was charming, and was therefore retained by the family, rather than disposed of, at which time it was revealed that it was in fact painted by a dutch artist and would fetch in excess of £25,000 before the right audience of buyers. Which it ultimately did.

Client X was lucky with that one, and Edward Green wishes he had been in his present line of work at the time, and perhaps he could have found similar riches amongst the remainder of the lost estate. He isn’t quite Indiana Jones, but he is certainly a treasure hunter, borne of experience and proximity to some of the finest artefacts that will be found. Prior to shepherding complex executry estates through to realisation and best sale, Green was a jeweller. The Crown jeweller, in fact. And having left the life of maintaining the state collection – yes, Crown, Orb, Sceptre, the lot - as well as procuring and providing personal jewellery for the monarch and the principal Royal family, Green has turned his unique and considerable talent to the executry market, whose rare and particular needs he feels distinctly qualified to cater to, providing a bespoke estate clearance service that will place the entire contents of an estate to the right market for sale, at home or abroad. Incredibly, no one seems to have done it before. Few indeed, would be able to.

 “The auction house will just pick and choose to get what they think is the best that is going, and leave everything else,” Green says.

“Whereas we will handle the whole job, and offer a true service, all the way through. If you have an estate to wind up, and a family involved, and you have this sheer weight of goods, if you call in for instance Sotheby’s, that is what will happen. If you call in someone lower grade, you won’t get a fair price, because they won’t know what they are selling. And you are still left with what is left over. We leave everything ready to market.” T

hat he has already begun to make a success of his new venture is unsurprising, given the rate at which he succeeded in the jewellery trade, which he entered after a miserable sojourn in the hotel business left him disillusioned and temporarily idle. A Christmas job in a Bond Street jeweller fitted him like a tailored suit, and he applied himself accordingly, working hard, attending evening classes to study diamond grading and becoming a Fellow of the Gemological Association. He was keen. A good salesman and organiser, with a flair for the nuanced balance of whimsy and expertise the role required. When the company was sold, Green moved to Mappin and Webb as a director, and in the curious sort of astral conjunction that fixes destinies, suddenly found himself sitting in the vacant chair at the pinnacle of his profession, as Crown Jeweller himself. He was 32 years old.

“I was in the right place at the right time,” he says. “The Managing Director of the sister company, Garrards the Crown Jewellers, retired unexpectedly, and the holding company that owned us sent for me and was given the job of MD of Garrards. So I was taken from broom cupboard office at Mappin and Webb where I was doing the merchandise, to the Crown jewellers at the top of the building in this very grand office.” It might sound that the appointment came thanks to that mystical tapping the shoulder, shaking of hands and comparing of school ties that historically marked so many established appointments of the last century. However in Edward Green’s case, hard work, application, and a seemingly perfect personality fit set him on his way, rather than any form of tapping up. From a standing start in jewellery, Green’s acumen, quick wit and ability to learn propelled him forward.

“I was keen. I liked the quality. I liked working with people on a similar vein, who liked things, I liked the customer base, being able to converse and seeing interesting people. It was a natural fit. I liked the work. It was a bit of theatre. I absolutely adored it.” It was Garrards, lest we forget, who in 1832 ground down the Koh-I-noor - the diamond that had been rent from ruler to ruler, through bloody wars and counterclaim for centuries- into a ‘brilliant’ that adorned the crown of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

“It was the number one position. I was very fortunate. I was in the right place at the right time. I was MD of the board, and all the board members were in their 50s and 60s, so I took over Garrards, and we had a very interesting time. We tried to make the place aspirational, and a very hip place to go. We brought the Royals in; the Queen mother came have lunch with us; the Princess of Wales came to a function. We brought a bit of glamour to the place, which was quite important,”

“We looked after the Royal jewellery. It is a prime function, but not a major function. It is vitally important, because you are looking after the Queen and all her jewellery, but it is not a major part of the business, because you are not going to run your business on that. It included the Queen’s private collection, and her state collection, which would be in the care of Garrards. We had someone whose role was to liaise with the palace to make sure everything was done. And we’d deal with other members of the Royal family, and other royal families, and I would be brought in when need be,”

“It was different. I had never dealt at that level before. There was a lot of discretion involved, and they had been working at it for years. It was new to me; I was just the custodian, but you have to manage it correctly other wise you lose it. I just had to get on with it.”

It was the subsequent sale of Garrards that encouraged Green to move on and apply his unique experience to his unique executry service, which the believes will cater to a much needed demand in high end estate clearances, when bereaved families have neither the will, patience or expertise to dispose of family goods most with the optimum expediency. It happened by chance, when a bereaved close friend called for advice on the death of a parent. Green’s first firefighting accidental exposure to the executry estate minefield was both instructive and inspiring.

“This was a very large household in the west end, so I went down and realised that he needed help, and didn’t have a clue what to do, and was boggle eyed trying to make sense of it all,” Green says.

“I was doing it as a friend, but suddenly as I was doing it I realised what it could be. It happens once in a while, when it gets you tingling. The pitfalls to be avoided are selling as a job lot. Everything needs to be tailored and placed where it ought to be placed. The truth is that one of the items may be worth a great deal. You need a proper inventory, so that a professional eye is applied to everything. The sheer weight of doing the job – which I cannot underestimate- there has to be an enormous amount of methodology, organisation and patience involved to ensure the right things go where they ought to,”

Given the thousands of candidate estates within the immediate city vicinity of Green’s Edinburgh base, it seems likely that there will be enough potential business to keep him scrutineering through the attics long into the future. “It is one of these things that I think lawyers primarily are waiting for. If they can go to a professionally accredited company to handle this for them to obtain the maximum for the estate, who can negotiate with the right auction house and get the better rate that the collection warrants, distinguish what goes where, ensure that is all marketed and dealt with appropriately, and do the professional job that needs to be done. I expect there’ll be great demand for that,” Green says.

It is ironic that Green believes he would probably be a better Crown jeweller now than he was in his youth, although it is only his experience in the former role that has helped bring him the knowledge to fulfil his present one. “I was inexperienced. I wish my career had gone the other way around, and all this was coming to me now, because I am that much more experienced,” he says, smiling. ““People trust you, if you can show that you have done your work, if you are professional, which one always tries to be.”