For her 60th birthday in 1997, Queen Sonja of Norway received from her husband, King Harald, what I think is a truly dope present - a tiara. But not just a tiara - one that has 3 different settings. This tiara has gotten a lot of shade from people on royal jewelry blogs and forums. They say it looks like sci-fi jewelry - as if that's a bad thing! Philistines... Anyway, the tiara was made by Norwegian artist Millie Behrens and has golden strips of metal with small diamonds in between the spaces. The 3 interchangable elements are orange-red topaz, deep green tourmaline and diamond. And, there are matching necklaces and earrings!

The various settings made their appearances at different intervals - first the topaz setting, then 4 years later the tourmaline setting and then the year after that the diamond setting. I kind of wonder if Harald was smart and gave her a present that he could add on to. You know, smart because he didn't have to think of a totally new birthday present, just decide, hey, not quite sure what to get her so this year I'll have another setting made! Sounds like a husband kind of thing to do. Or maybe she got the settings all at once and was just slow to publicly display them. I don't know. Royals be like that sometimes.

Photo of Queen Sonja's Modern Gold Tiara. It is made of vertical gold strips with tiny diamonds in between the strips. Within a central oval that is pointed on each end, there is an orange-red topaz stacked element with a small diamond, a larger round topaz in a golden bezel, another small diamond and a diamond-shaped topaz in a golden bezel.

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Version number 1 - the orange-red topaz.

Image of Queen Sonja in a red and gold ballgown wearing the Modern Gold Tiara with the orange-red topaz setting. She also has a matching set of earrings. They have a gold pointed oval set in the center with an oval topaz in a gold bezel with small diamonds on top and bottom. Dangling from this piece are 2 small oval topaz in gold bezels set on small gold plaques with a small round diamond in the middle. She has a matching choker style necklace with a design that mimics the tiara's and in thecenter a large oval cabochon topaz on a gold slide.

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In this photo you can see the rest of the set with the matching earrings and choker necklace with topaz slide.

Queen Sonja's Modern Gold Tiara with the tourmaline element. The tourmaline is a large, dark green rectangle outlined with a row of diamonds. There is a geometric, diamond outlined shape that is almost a trapezoid above it. The bottom portion of the element is covered by the queen's hair and is not visible.

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Version 2 - the green tourmaline. The queen has floofy hair in all the photos that I've seen with her wearing this setting of the tiara so I have never seen the bottom of this tourmaline piece. However, rumor is the tourmaline setting can be worn as a brooch. I've spent a lot of time looking at the picture below and the tiara ones and I'm not entirely convinced it's the same piece. It is entirely possible that a matching brooch was made for this set.

Photo of Queen Sonja wearing a shiny light green dress and slightly darker green hat adorned with light green-yellow flowers. Pinned to her dress is a rectangular tourmaline piece that is supposed to be the tourmaline setting of the Modern Gold Tiara. The bottom of the piece, which was not visible in the tiara photos, looks like it could possibly be set with a rectangular green stone.

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Photo of Queen Sonja in a bright yellow fancy dress wearing the Modern Gold Tiara with the green tourmaline element with matching necklace and earrings. The earrings are large diamond shaped tourmalines with diamond accents and the necklace has a coiled look with 2 rectangular tourmaline pieces with partial diamond frames meeting in the front and a larger rectangular tourmaline with the same partial diamond frame in the center, hanging vertically.

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The Queen often pairs the tourmalines with this bright yellow dress, which is known as the Big Bird Dress on various royal jewelry forums and blogs.

Photo of Queen Sonja's Modern Gold Tiara with the diamond setting. Small round diamonds outline the pointed oval central element and there is a line of 5 larger round diamonds in the middle.

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Version 3 - the diamond setting! This is very subtle and calls back to the angular design of the base tiara. Sometimes I think I see photos without the central line of diamonds and just the smaller outlining ones but that may just be due to the angle the photo was taken.

Photo of Queen Sonja in a gold and silver fancy gown with the Modern Gold Tiara in the diamond setting. Her earrings are double gold vertical lines with 3 small diamonds in the space between, mimicing the look of the tiara. She is wearing a plain gold choker necklace that has the same look as the tiara, with verticle gold strips with small round diamonds in between. There is a plain gold slide in the center which appears to have a small round diamond in the center with vertical engraved lines above and below.

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Here you can see she is wearing the same gold choker as she was wearing with the topaz setting, but she has changed out the slide for one that is plain gold with a small diamond.

So there you have it - a lovely modern piece with a lot of different ways to wear it. I quite like it and would be happy to give it a home, should it ever need one. What do you think? Sci-fi monstrosity or do you like it? Or, do you like it because it is a sci-fi monstrosity?

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