Tupac Shakur’s self-designed crown ring, worn by the rapper during the last public appearance before his 1996 death, highlights Sotheby’s upcoming auction celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.
The gold, ruby, and diamond-encrusted ring is expected to receive bids up to $300,000 when the item hits the auction block starting on July 18.
According to the auction house, Shakur, then freshly released from both prison and newly signed to Death Row Records, told his godmother and money manager Fula that he wanted to design a ring to represent the next stage of his career, a piece of jewelry befitting of “an act of self-coronation,” Fula said.
Inspired by both royalty and Machiavelli, the rapper collaborated with New York jewelers to design the ring. “Sitting atop a diamond-encrusted gold band is the ‘crown’ itself: a gold circlet studded with the three largest jewels in the entire piece—a central cabochon ruby, flanked by two pavé-cut diamonds,” Sotheby’s wrote of the item. “Tupac’s selection of the ruby as the principal stone in his crown is a continuation of this royal narrative, as rubies have long been symbolically tied to the imagery of monarchy and wealth in our cultural imagination.”
The ring’s band reads “Pac & Dada 1996,” a tribute to his then-girlfriend Kidada Jones. Although frequently worn by Shakur in the last year of his life, the ring was on his left ring finger when he made his last public appearance on September 4, 1996, at the MTV Video Music Awards. Three days later, Shakur was shot four times in Las Vegas.
2Pac’s crown ring is the first item in Sotheby’s 50th-anniversary hip-hop auction, which will “encompass art, artifacts, sneakers, & more” from artists like Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, Ice-T, and more.
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