The 175-year-old company, one of the last luxury jewelers in the famed Place Vendome to remain in private hands, is reported to have suffered losses last year of 15 million Euro on a turnover of the same size.

Failing to comply with French law, the company has not registered its balance sheet with the Commercial Court in Paris for the last two years.

FWD could not reach company president Patrick Mauboussin for comment, but the last fully available results, from 1999, reveal that his family's company incurred losses of $580,000 on a turnover of $2.1 million.

Identifying a suitable -- and willing -- party to purchase the troubled brand is no easy feat, however. Not everyone has the funds of an LVMH (owner of Chaumet) or a Richemont (which owns Van Cleef & Arpels).

So far discussions with prospective candidates have foundered over differences of opinion about the valuation of the company.

Mauboussin has seen its fortunes slide since the late '90s when much of its traditional core clientele, including the serial-spending Sultan of Brunei, stopped buying.

With sales weakening, Patrick Mauboussin decided that, in order to survive, the company couldn't stand still.

The result, financed by French bank BNP, was a disastrous series of expansion projects, including the launch of a perfume in 2000 and the rolling out of stores in Monte Carlo, Taipei and Tokyo.

Meanwhile the price of gold has soared to over $310 an ounce, the highest it's been in two years. Whether canny, or just plain scared, investors always tend to fall back on gold when times get tough.

Yet Mauboussin, up to its bejeweled neck in diamond debt, still hasn't been able to find anyone willing to invest in it -- or buy any of its products for that matter.