Those Wacky Royals Might Be Hoarding Millions in Jewelry Gifts

• The Royal Family's skirting of gifting rules has been in the headlines lately.

• Roughly £80 million in official gifts are reportedly not where they're supposed to be.

• Buckingham Palace refused to comment.

With the coming coronation of King Charles, the news is full of stories about the Royal Family. And not all of them are the kind the King and his kin were probably hoping for. The Meghan Markle saga has reemerged in recent days, as well as a controversial ivory staff that's centuries old. And then there's the matter of the Royals' financial dealings when it comes to "gifts."

This last point is serious business. Could you imagine if, here in the United States, a high-powered, unelected official with a lifetime appointment had been accepting a bunch of gifts off the books? Couldn't be our leaders!

As we first discussed with regards to the Royal Family's sale of gifted horses, there's some controversy over what does or does not constitute a "personal gift" vs. an "official gift." Personal gifts are gifts that become property of the individual Royal to whom they were presented, while official gifts are those given with the idea that they belong to the entire country and its people. When it came to the controversially sold horses, Buckingham Palace reportedly said that those were personal gifts, and therefore property of the Royals who sold them, and didn't need to be disclosed.

And when The Guardian recently inquired about jewels whose collective value reached £80 million, which were definitely "official gifts" and yet were not where they should be in the National Collection, the argument Buckingham Palace offered them was: nothing.

While the Guardian can report that "The Royal Collection Trust, which manages the collection, confirmed that it does not have custody of the 11 jewels," they were unable to get answers from Buckingham Palace regarding where any of the jewels in question are.

The 11 items in question include the Nizam of Hyderabad diamond necklace, crafted by Cartier in 1935, which "contains more than 300 platinum-set diamonds, including a detachable double-drop pendant."

Guidelines for the receipt of official gifts by the palace were created in 1995, and updated in 2003, though the 11 items in question were all received prior to these guidelines being implemented. So maybe Buckingham Palace can offer that as their counterargument to the Guardian's allegations. Should they ever choose to respond to them.

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