Sapphire worth keeping? (another sapphire - sorry!)

[Treenbean]

Chrono, I agree the outcome,now, seems successful.

 

[LD]

Treenbean - this is a consumer forum and it was my understanding that we could raise legitimate concerns (if asked). I appreciate you know/trust this seller but I don't. I'm afraid that I take exception that I now feel I have to be cautious about what I say for fear of offending despite the fact that I backed up my concerns with photos, links and a description of what I had seen. Marnar has come on here, listened, explained and come out of it well.

However, for me, I don't feel comfortable by the tone of your posts and therefore, in future, I won't be commenting about anything and I'm going to take a holiday from posting.

 

[Pandora II]

I hope we have another trustworthy vendor. My vote would be for AGL as an option. If the stone is as stated, then the cost would be on the buyer. If the stone does not end up as stated, the cost would be on the seller.

If the cost of certain reports are too high for the seller to risk, then perhaps only the AGL Gem Brief ($55) could be an option to look for something as simple as heat enhancement. Maybe AGL could even be asked to call the purchaser based on Gem Brief tests to determine if the _purchaser_ wants to pay for more tests. This way, the seller does not risk paying for something as expensive as a Prestige Report, and it would still give the option for a buyer to pay for a Prestige Report if the stone warrants that level of testing. This would make sense for stones that are stated as having no enhancements. If I purchase such a stone, I would want it be checked for enhancements like heating and fillers, before I would want to test for origin. I would not want to do this for heated stones because then I may end up paying lots of money for BE-diffusion on my own.

The issue with AGL is that they are in the USA. Many vendors are in Thailand or Sri Lanka, unless AGL opens a branch in either of these countries then it's just not realistic to expect vendors to send stones internationally with all the risks and problems that incurs in order to get a report which is MUCH more expensive than the ones they can get on the doorstep, and more importantly isn't of interest to the majority of customers. The vendor would also need to reclaim the cost of the report which could make them considerably less competitive pricewise.

In the UK, AGL is not yet one of the most prestigious labs - here Gubelin, SSEF and GRD are the ones that people like and use - I imagine that is the same for most of Europe, so using AGL wouldn't have any positive impact for a vendor for that portion of the market. Sapphires are extremely common in e-rings here, so I imagine it is a very sizeable percentage.

Offering an option to send the stone to AGL once it has been bought with an offer to buy it back and cover the cost of the report should it not be what is claimed is far more realistic IMO.