- Joined
- Jan 7, 2018
- Messages
- 124
My mum is an amazing human being but now I’m afraid that someone has screwed her over, big time. A few days ago my mum surprised me and gifted me some jewellery that she had bought from her trip abroad about 10 years ago. She had bought them thinking of me, our family has no heirloom pieces and she thought she could buy some gemstone pieces to pass on to her daughter one day. What an incredible mama! However, when I heard the country she had bought these pieces from: Turkey, my heart started beating a bit faster and a terrible feeling of doubt started creeping up on me. Had someone ripped my dear mother off?
So... There is one ring with a center emerald and a ruby. The ring can be flipped so you can either show just red or green. Two little diamonds (test at least positive but are SI-I quality) are on both sides of each stone. The necklace is the same story, emerald and ruby with little diamond side stones. The jewelry comes with dodgy looking “certificates”, are quite poorly done in 14k white gold and the stones do not look great even to me and I don’t know much about gemstones. They are pretty though, I could imagine wearing the necklace and taking the ring apart to make two rings out of it.
My question is: is it worth taking these pieces to a gemologist to ask about the quality of the stones? I’ve already contacted one and received a quote that sounds fair. I just don’t know if it makes sense to throw any more money at these pieces, or just cut our losses and treat them as costume jewelry pretty much. I looked at some guidelines online how to distinguish fake rubies and emeralds from real ones and these appear to have some typical signs of filling. E.g bubbles. I feel absolutely terrible for my beloved mother. She had all the best intentions but these pieces simply don’t appear to be worth the thousands she paid for them. I’ll wear them and love them but I feel she also needs some kind of closure if these are pretty much worthless or not. She has had doubts over these ever since her trip and has kept the jewelry secret from me all this time. Now since I’m more into jewelry and diamonds, she thought it’s time to give them to me and face the truth.
Fortunately all this was about 10 years ago, so if these turn out be be utter shite, it won’t really affect her.
I’ve taken some pictures through a loupe. I tried to capture what I saw as signs of filling. Do you reckon, based on these images, that it’s clear that these stones are worthless or is there a chance that it wasn’t a total scam and I should take them to a gemologist?
Big thanks to everyone for help!
So... There is one ring with a center emerald and a ruby. The ring can be flipped so you can either show just red or green. Two little diamonds (test at least positive but are SI-I quality) are on both sides of each stone. The necklace is the same story, emerald and ruby with little diamond side stones. The jewelry comes with dodgy looking “certificates”, are quite poorly done in 14k white gold and the stones do not look great even to me and I don’t know much about gemstones. They are pretty though, I could imagine wearing the necklace and taking the ring apart to make two rings out of it.
My question is: is it worth taking these pieces to a gemologist to ask about the quality of the stones? I’ve already contacted one and received a quote that sounds fair. I just don’t know if it makes sense to throw any more money at these pieces, or just cut our losses and treat them as costume jewelry pretty much. I looked at some guidelines online how to distinguish fake rubies and emeralds from real ones and these appear to have some typical signs of filling. E.g bubbles. I feel absolutely terrible for my beloved mother. She had all the best intentions but these pieces simply don’t appear to be worth the thousands she paid for them. I’ll wear them and love them but I feel she also needs some kind of closure if these are pretty much worthless or not. She has had doubts over these ever since her trip and has kept the jewelry secret from me all this time. Now since I’m more into jewelry and diamonds, she thought it’s time to give them to me and face the truth.
Fortunately all this was about 10 years ago, so if these turn out be be utter shite, it won’t really affect her.
I’ve taken some pictures through a loupe. I tried to capture what I saw as signs of filling. Do you reckon, based on these images, that it’s clear that these stones are worthless or is there a chance that it wasn’t a total scam and I should take them to a gemologist?
Big thanks to everyone for help!