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- Jul 23, 2012
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My grandmother passed away late last year; a week before her 98th birthday. She was many things - but one predominant trait was that she loved to gamble. Shortly after her passing I received a modest inheritance. I wanted to commemorate her life with a piece of jewelry - but I did not want to spend the whole inheritance on a single item. It didn't seem responsible. As I was trying to come up with the best way to honor her and while doing that I came across an eBay listing and inspiration struck.
This grainy photo came up in my search in a listing titled " Vintage 14k Citrine Ring."
I didn't believe that this was a citrine. Having looked at enough listing and photos of gemstones - I am pretty good at identifying gemstones (though I would absolutely not recommend this to anyone.)
The ring had no returns. If I were to buy it, it would be a gamble since if I was wrong - I would be stuck with it. The ring was listed for about $500 - and with my modest inheritance I thought “Grandma would love a little gamble . Lets do it. At the very least I can resell it and not lose too much, right?“
However - the listing had " eBay Authentication." This posed a real problem as eBay does not give you the option to forgo authentication - even if you know/ don’t care if the stone isn't as described. This particular seller claimed to be a previous jewelry store owner. So with some sleuthing - I was able to find a listing off eBay and skip the authentication. This though, was another gamble. How could he own a jewelry store and mistake a gemstone for a citrine? “ Maybe I am being dumb” i thought- this will end up being scrapped for the gold value - or I'm being all together scammed. But, knowing I was happy to gamble and having a little faith in myself, I went ahead and bought it.
The first bit of good news came when I opened the box and in fact I did get the ring that was photographed - so i wasn't swindled. Nice. The second was how it looked. I had some idea, being familiar with gemstone and jewelry photography, that the sellers photos were not a good representation of the color of the gemstone. I was shocked, however, but just how vivid and lively the stone was.
After that, I had to get it out of the setting. I took a little dental floss and bent one of the prongs back ( again i do not recommend!!) and popped the stone right out. The setting was not unlike many mid century settings with seed pearls and mid grade (or synthetic) gemstones. An indicator that I was, in fact, wrong, and the stone would turn out to be unremarkable. But nevertheless - we kept going.
Measuring it with my poor quality Amazon calipers and entering the dimensions into a gemstone estimator - I got a return that said if the gemstone was a sapphire with these dimensions, the stone would weigh between 6.0-6.6 cts.
Next step was to take it to a local jeweler and have it weighed. I know I could have had someone use a gemstone tester but frankly I didn't want to have that conversation with an employee. "What do you think it is? A sapphire? Oh, dummy, its glass!" So instead I had them weigh it and it came in at about 6.3cts.
So now I have some info to back up my initial opinion that the gemstone is a sapphire, not a citrine. What next? Well, I figured send her off to the GIA. I had an idea to get the country of origin, too (which i never do) but - if it’s synthetic anyways, they wont charge me. Again, a huge waste of money - possibly - but off she goes.
I shipped her off and after about a week or two - I was sure I was wasting my money. The color was too vivid. Some sort of diffused aquarium stone, certainly. If natural at all. However, my worries were unfounded:
Now I am shocked that someone identifying themselves as a "jewelry store owner " would have mistaken this stone for a citrine and not given it a second thought. I like to think that it was not a coincidence that I took a gamble on this particular item and it paid off so well.
I could have left it in its original setting - but I am not a fan of that style of setting. Plus, I felt it gave "citrine vibes” - and this stone deserved "sapphire vibes ". But how to set it? There was a ring I had been admiring for a few months I found on Instagram. I was not a fan of the gallery design, but the overall look really spoke to me.
I was able to source a fair amount of well matched antique melee (again, what luck!) and I sent it to DK to work their magic. As many of you know, I am a little persnickety when it comes to my cads. I can go through many iterations. However, this was relatively quick, and i was very happy with the outcome. Below are the initial and then the final approved cads. (I’d been deciding on the gallery detail in the beginning )
i just got word that the final touches are done!! So excited. I will of course have a million more photos when it’s done. I had “be wary. Be clever. Be good. “ inscribed on the inside too- as a personal touch for this personal piece.
if you TL/DR, I can respect that. The stone is a 6.33 ct unheated Sri Lankan sapphire measuring 10.78x9.44. Set in an antique reproduction setting with 3.2 tcw of old cut diamonds in platinum. size 7.5. Thanks!
Also. As an aside, my sister used some of her money to gamble as well (scratch offs and betting on the masters) and she won both of those, too. Clearly grandma is happy with how we’ve allocated our money
This grainy photo came up in my search in a listing titled " Vintage 14k Citrine Ring."
I didn't believe that this was a citrine. Having looked at enough listing and photos of gemstones - I am pretty good at identifying gemstones (though I would absolutely not recommend this to anyone.)
The ring had no returns. If I were to buy it, it would be a gamble since if I was wrong - I would be stuck with it. The ring was listed for about $500 - and with my modest inheritance I thought “Grandma would love a little gamble . Lets do it. At the very least I can resell it and not lose too much, right?“
However - the listing had " eBay Authentication." This posed a real problem as eBay does not give you the option to forgo authentication - even if you know/ don’t care if the stone isn't as described. This particular seller claimed to be a previous jewelry store owner. So with some sleuthing - I was able to find a listing off eBay and skip the authentication. This though, was another gamble. How could he own a jewelry store and mistake a gemstone for a citrine? “ Maybe I am being dumb” i thought- this will end up being scrapped for the gold value - or I'm being all together scammed. But, knowing I was happy to gamble and having a little faith in myself, I went ahead and bought it.
The first bit of good news came when I opened the box and in fact I did get the ring that was photographed - so i wasn't swindled. Nice. The second was how it looked. I had some idea, being familiar with gemstone and jewelry photography, that the sellers photos were not a good representation of the color of the gemstone. I was shocked, however, but just how vivid and lively the stone was.
After that, I had to get it out of the setting. I took a little dental floss and bent one of the prongs back ( again i do not recommend!!) and popped the stone right out. The setting was not unlike many mid century settings with seed pearls and mid grade (or synthetic) gemstones. An indicator that I was, in fact, wrong, and the stone would turn out to be unremarkable. But nevertheless - we kept going.
Measuring it with my poor quality Amazon calipers and entering the dimensions into a gemstone estimator - I got a return that said if the gemstone was a sapphire with these dimensions, the stone would weigh between 6.0-6.6 cts.
Next step was to take it to a local jeweler and have it weighed. I know I could have had someone use a gemstone tester but frankly I didn't want to have that conversation with an employee. "What do you think it is? A sapphire? Oh, dummy, its glass!" So instead I had them weigh it and it came in at about 6.3cts.
So now I have some info to back up my initial opinion that the gemstone is a sapphire, not a citrine. What next? Well, I figured send her off to the GIA. I had an idea to get the country of origin, too (which i never do) but - if it’s synthetic anyways, they wont charge me. Again, a huge waste of money - possibly - but off she goes.
I shipped her off and after about a week or two - I was sure I was wasting my money. The color was too vivid. Some sort of diffused aquarium stone, certainly. If natural at all. However, my worries were unfounded:
Now I am shocked that someone identifying themselves as a "jewelry store owner " would have mistaken this stone for a citrine and not given it a second thought. I like to think that it was not a coincidence that I took a gamble on this particular item and it paid off so well.
I could have left it in its original setting - but I am not a fan of that style of setting. Plus, I felt it gave "citrine vibes” - and this stone deserved "sapphire vibes ". But how to set it? There was a ring I had been admiring for a few months I found on Instagram. I was not a fan of the gallery design, but the overall look really spoke to me.
I was able to source a fair amount of well matched antique melee (again, what luck!) and I sent it to DK to work their magic. As many of you know, I am a little persnickety when it comes to my cads. I can go through many iterations. However, this was relatively quick, and i was very happy with the outcome. Below are the initial and then the final approved cads. (I’d been deciding on the gallery detail in the beginning )
i just got word that the final touches are done!! So excited. I will of course have a million more photos when it’s done. I had “be wary. Be clever. Be good. “ inscribed on the inside too- as a personal touch for this personal piece.
if you TL/DR, I can respect that. The stone is a 6.33 ct unheated Sri Lankan sapphire measuring 10.78x9.44. Set in an antique reproduction setting with 3.2 tcw of old cut diamonds in platinum. size 7.5. Thanks!
Also. As an aside, my sister used some of her money to gamble as well (scratch offs and betting on the masters) and she won both of those, too. Clearly grandma is happy with how we’ve allocated our money
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