A $4.2M jewelry collection, Geneva vault to Manhattan floor in 29 hours
Eighty-seven pieces from a private European collection needed to reach the auction floor in Manhattan with timing that could not slip. We pre-cleared CBP, chartered the jet, and put an armed courier on every leg.
The challenge
A Geneva-based private family consigned 87 pieces to a Christie's Americas evening sale in Manhattan. The jewelry had to be in the salesroom by 18:00 Tuesday, or the entire evening's catalog would slip to a later date.
A prior forwarder had missed the sale window by six hours because a CBP exam held the parcel overnight at JFK, triggered by a customs bond mismatch the forwarder had not caught. This time the client wanted a plan that assumed customs would hold the parcel, and engineered around it.
What we built
- Pre-lodged CBP entry five days before departure, with the IOR bond verified against the previous auction's entry.
- Chartered a dedicated aircraft rather than booking space on a scheduled freighter: no consolidation, no hub transit, no truck transfer.
- Two Meridian armed couriers traveled with the cargo as accompanied baggage, never leaving the parcel's side from vault to salesroom.
- Dual-signature handover at four stages: Geneva vault, aircraft, JFK bonded facility, Manhattan salesroom.
- All-risk insurance to $4.2M declared value, bound two weeks in advance.
The journey
Vault release at 06:30 Monday. Customs pre-clearance came back green at 11:15. Wheels up from Geneva at 14:00, wheels down at Teterboro at 17:20 local. A smaller airport with no CBP exam queue and a dedicated private terminal, versus the typical 2-4 hour JFK hold. Bonded van to Manhattan, arrival at the salesroom at 19:30, 22.5 hours after vault release.
The outcome
84 of 87 lots sold, the house's strongest single-consignment result for the quarter. The three unsold pieces returned to Geneva via the same team three weeks later. No discrepancies, no exceptions, no insurance claims.
"They treated a $4M consignment the way most forwarders treat a $40 shipment. Every line item verified, every handover witnessed. That is not normal in this industry." — Rebecca Morrison, Director of Logistics, Christie's Americas
Meridian ran this engagement end-to-end. Pre-clearance, custodial handovers, and final delivery were handled by our own operations team. Every scan visible on the public tracking page in real time.
