Uri Geller and the Mayor’s Regalia – Report in The Daily Post – December 12, 2000

The Daily Post
12 Dec 2000

When the Lord Mayor of Liverpool met Paranormal Spoon bender Uri Geller he didn’t expect to trigger a chain reaction, but Mayor Eddie Clein was astonished when later in the evening the £500,000 ($800,000) piece of civic regalia he was wearing bent and fell to pieces. It later transpired that six rivets holding the diamond-encrusted Jewel of Liverpool treasure in its solid-gold casing had simultaneously come adrift.

The visibly shocked Mayor said “I was just leaning forward to reach for the pepper when I heard and felt a rattle and found the back of the Jewel hanging outward and bending. It continued bending for a few minutes. My attendant David Ramsey, who has looked after the Jewel for more than 20 years, said he could not believe it had disintegrated because it had been as solid as a granite when he put it around my neck. I know some people say Geller is a magician but I don’t. I accept that he has psychic powers; he had not touched the jewel at any time.”

Geller, 54, was bending a spoon for Greater Manchester Chief Constable (Chief of Police) David Wilmot when there was a shriek from the Lord Mayor’s table which was over 20 feet away from Geller’s table.

Cllr Clein took the jewel, which bears Liverpool’s coat of arms, to be repaired at Liverpool jewellers William Pyke and Sons and they were also baffled. All the rivets which hold the back plate on the jewel at the front had fallen out and bent. Managing Director John Pyke said “I am a sceptic about this sort of thing but what has happened to the jewel is difficult to explain.

“You might expect the odd rivet to fall out or come loose but for all of them to drop out and bend at once is bizarre. We check the chains for the Lord Mayor regularly and repair them. The damage is not great, it will probably only take a few days to mend; it is just highly unusual and very strange. In my entire professional life as a jeweller I have never ever seen anything like this.”