katharath
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2013
- Messages
- 2,850
Please bear with me here - this is a long story...
I have a box of mineral specimens that has been in my family for some years (50ish I believe). Unfortunately, we know very little about the specimens, as the person who actually collected them has passed. I've had them in my possession for about a year now and am finally trying to see what I can find out.
Most of the specimens seem pretty easy to identify - lapis, green tourmaline, what I think is probably rose quartz, another tourmaline, etc etc. These are pretty heavily included to my extremely inexperienced eye - I've begun developing my eye for cut gems over the last couple of years, but I know absolutely *nothing* about gem rough.
However, one of the specimens is a bit more interesting. I was told by my father awhile back that he once had this small collection looked at, and the man who looked at it told him that one of the specimens he had was "worth a small fortune". The man didn't want to elaborate; he did not tell my dad what he thought the material was, he simply told him that if he decided to sell, to let him know. (This was a good 30 years ago?). We are not sure what type of specimen it is - my dad never had it looked at again. So we have no clue what the man meant by "a small fortune" - $100? $500? $5000?
Maybe six months or so ago, I emailed some pics of the specimen to my jeweler/gem seller/friend, and she showed the pics to a well known gem seller here on PS; she also showed them to her friend that works in a New York gem lab. The friend and the gem seller had a matching opinion on what the specimen actually is, but I won't tell it here just yet, as I'd like to see if anyone has any thoughts here before being influenced by me
The piece weights 12.4 ounces and is rather large; I couldn't find my measuring tape today, but one side is at least 4 inches long, and it's close to the size of my hand when I make a fist.
The color of most of the piece is a lovely pale pink. There is one section that looks different; it appears to be a very pale green color. I'm not sure if this is the same type of specimen or possibly another type growing onto each other? The texture of the green rock looks different as well. There is also a small section of white/colorless area that looks similar to the green section in consistency. These two areas do not appear to be viable gem material but they make up the smaller portion of the specimen. There are little rainbow flashes all over the piece, which you can see in a couple of the pics. There are largish areas of the pink portion which look very clean to my eye. Very clean as in possibly cutting material. There are several large chunky areas like that on at least one side. It's a bit hard to tell from the pics bc the inclusions deeper inside show through to the cleaner outside areas.
So my questions are: what do you think it could be? And if it is something valuable, what's the best way to go about selling it - should I market this towards mineral sellers/collectors or towards gem cutters? I completely understand that no one can tell me what it is just by looking and my scarce info. I'm really more interested to learn if anyone knows how I might be able to determine if this is gem cutting worthy material or if it should be left alone. I'm hesitant to mail it in to a lab on the chance that it actually IS worth something - if it were worth a few hundred dollars it wouldn't bother me much, but what if it were worth a few thousand? That makes me nervous. Mainly, I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to proceed. I'm not looking for anyone to tell me what it's worth, or even really what it is , don't worry . But with that said, any help would be appreciated. If it is actually worth something more than, say, a few hundred, I'd be interested in possibly selling it, and at this point I'm just looking to get pointed in the right direction. I am in no rush; just trying to get some idea of where to even begin. (I have sold out of my collection on eBay, LT, etc - I've actually sold on eBay for probably 10 years or so, out of my personal collections. This is such a foreign thing to me though that I'm not sure what the best venue would be, if we even get to that point, of course).
Thanks for looking and hopefully getting all the way through this!
LOTS of pics coming, from different angles, all in natural lighting (varying degrees of sunlight).
I have a box of mineral specimens that has been in my family for some years (50ish I believe). Unfortunately, we know very little about the specimens, as the person who actually collected them has passed. I've had them in my possession for about a year now and am finally trying to see what I can find out.
Most of the specimens seem pretty easy to identify - lapis, green tourmaline, what I think is probably rose quartz, another tourmaline, etc etc. These are pretty heavily included to my extremely inexperienced eye - I've begun developing my eye for cut gems over the last couple of years, but I know absolutely *nothing* about gem rough.
However, one of the specimens is a bit more interesting. I was told by my father awhile back that he once had this small collection looked at, and the man who looked at it told him that one of the specimens he had was "worth a small fortune". The man didn't want to elaborate; he did not tell my dad what he thought the material was, he simply told him that if he decided to sell, to let him know. (This was a good 30 years ago?). We are not sure what type of specimen it is - my dad never had it looked at again. So we have no clue what the man meant by "a small fortune" - $100? $500? $5000?
Maybe six months or so ago, I emailed some pics of the specimen to my jeweler/gem seller/friend, and she showed the pics to a well known gem seller here on PS; she also showed them to her friend that works in a New York gem lab. The friend and the gem seller had a matching opinion on what the specimen actually is, but I won't tell it here just yet, as I'd like to see if anyone has any thoughts here before being influenced by me
The piece weights 12.4 ounces and is rather large; I couldn't find my measuring tape today, but one side is at least 4 inches long, and it's close to the size of my hand when I make a fist.
The color of most of the piece is a lovely pale pink. There is one section that looks different; it appears to be a very pale green color. I'm not sure if this is the same type of specimen or possibly another type growing onto each other? The texture of the green rock looks different as well. There is also a small section of white/colorless area that looks similar to the green section in consistency. These two areas do not appear to be viable gem material but they make up the smaller portion of the specimen. There are little rainbow flashes all over the piece, which you can see in a couple of the pics. There are largish areas of the pink portion which look very clean to my eye. Very clean as in possibly cutting material. There are several large chunky areas like that on at least one side. It's a bit hard to tell from the pics bc the inclusions deeper inside show through to the cleaner outside areas.
So my questions are: what do you think it could be? And if it is something valuable, what's the best way to go about selling it - should I market this towards mineral sellers/collectors or towards gem cutters? I completely understand that no one can tell me what it is just by looking and my scarce info
. I'm really more interested to learn if anyone knows how I might be able to determine if this is gem cutting worthy material or if it should be left alone. I'm hesitant to mail it in to a lab on the chance that it actually IS worth something - if it were worth a few hundred dollars it wouldn't bother me much, but what if it were worth a few thousand? That makes me nervous. Mainly, I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to proceed. I'm not looking for anyone to tell me what it's worth, or even really what it is , don't worry . But with that said, any help would be appreciated. If it is actually worth something more than, say, a few hundred, I'd be interested in possibly selling it, and at this point I'm just looking to get pointed in the right direction. I am in no rush; just trying to get some idea of where to even begin. (I have sold out of my collection on eBay, LT, etc - I've actually sold on eBay for probably 10 years or so, out of my personal collections. This is such a foreign thing to me though that I'm not sure what the best venue would be, if we even get to that point, of course).Thanks for looking and hopefully getting all the way through this!
LOTS of pics coming, from different angles, all in natural lighting (varying degrees of sunlight).
300x240.png)