Real or Fake git certificate

[Agnesg]

Recently I bought myself a small yellow sapphire from gemburionline. I wanted the git certification to proof it is not heated. True enough, I received the sapphire and the git certification. BUT...the sapphire has been removed from the plastic, which was supposed to be sealed. It was wrapped separately in a piece of diamond paper. Immediately I contacted gemburionline and Tan explained that they opened the seal to wrap the sapphire separately as to prevent any damage during transit..also he GUARANTEE that the git cert belongs to this particular sapphire...however I am a quite skeptical about it...Are my worries uncalled for? What should I do now? To just take his words or what can I do to verify? help please..thank you

 

[ForteKitty]

I have a few stones from him, and he always puts it in a tiny plastic baggie, then wrap it in cotton, then puts it in another small plastic baggie, then the whole thing goes into diamond paper, folded, then into the padded envelope. I would trust him.

Doesn't the GIT have measurements you can verify?

 

[Agnesg]

It is in the same packaging as what you described. Does your gems comes with git certification? At the back of the gut certificate states, Any person to whom this memo is shown, distributed or transferred should realize that there is a possibility that the gemstone in this pack may be different from the one submitted to the GIT in case that the pack is unsealed or broken. I think that there isn't any kind of online verification for GIT....thank you

 

[chrono]

My 2 stones from Tan are always double bagged with cotton padding as ForteKitty described even when accompanied by a lab memo. This is done to ensure the safety of the gemstone from damage. A simple way to verify that the stone is the same as the one on the memo is by description (shape, carat weight and measurement, plus verification of gem type and colour) because it isn’t that easy to duplicate that.

 

[ForteKitty]

There's always gonna be a possibility that a stone may be switched. If a seller really wanted to, he can have his cutter cut up a bunch of synthetics according to the size on the GIT, and sell them to you. ... but i highly doubt they will do that...

Take it into a store and have them measure the stone w/ calipers. I only had a few stones certified, but it was with AIGS and not GIT.

 

[Lady_Disdain]

There's always gonna be a possibility that a stone may be switched. If a seller really wanted to, he can have his cutter cut up a bunch of synthetics according to the size on the GIT, and sell them to you. ... but i highly doubt they will do that...

Take it into a store and have them measure the stone w/ calipers. I only had a few stones certified, but it was with AIGS and not GIT.

Why do you doubt it? I have heard of this kind of fraud before, even with diamonds. If the stone is not sealed, we are back to "trust the vendor", which was why the stone was sent to a lab anyway.

 

[ForteKitty]

I'm sure he knows that he's talked about on this forum. If he pulls something like that, don't you think he'd get caught? I persnally dont think he's stupid enough risk his reputation to switch out a small sapphire.

If she really doesn't trust him, send it in to a grader and ask Tan to cover the expense, or just return it. It's an easy enough solution.

I dont know how GIT packages and seals the stone, but if it's not packaged well and the stone chips, i'd be pissed.

 

[Lady_Disdain]

Considering the vast amount of sellers with obvious synthetics/fakes being sold as natural, mislabeling of products and other common practices in ebay, I have my doubts.

My main point is, if we are going by trust, why get the certificate in the first place? If I am getting the certificate, I want all the protection it affords me. I am sure there are plenty of ways to cushion the stone without unsealing it.

 

[ForteKitty]

Well, i think there's two different trust issues we're talking about here.

1) Trust on the disclosure of the stone. I want to know if the stone is natural, and unheated, as stated. The seller may not know or have tools to find out. I dont trust that he has the tools, even tho i trust that he's honest, so that's where the lab comes in.

2) Trust that the vendor is not a crook. If you're assuming that A stone was certified, but at some point the vendor swapped out the real for the synthetic. That's a HUGE problem. In that case, i would just return it. you'll always have that doubt unless you personally send it in for a secondary certification.

But if you're that skeptical, wouldn't you want to personally send it in to GIA or something to begin with? i know if i'm buying someting over $1k, i would, whether it's gems or a diamond.

 

[T L]

Recently I bought myself a small yellow sapphire from gemburionline. I wanted the git certification to proof it is not heated. True enough, I received the sapphire and the git certification. BUT...the sapphire has been removed from the plastic, which was supposed to be sealed. It was wrapped separately in a piece of diamond paper. Immediately I contacted gemburionline and Tan explained that they opened the seal to wrap the sapphire separately as to prevent any damage during transit..also he GUARANTEE that the git cert belongs to this particular sapphire...however I am a quite skeptical about it...Are my worries uncalled for? What should I do now? To just take his words or what can I do to verify? help please..thank you

Your only recourse is to send it to another lab for verification if you're unsure, or to a highly specialized gemologist who is trained to study corundum and can see inclusions indicative of unheated material. i would suggest the former though. In the future, if people buy from Tan, perhaps they can suggest that the gem not be removed from the seal. I know he sends his merchandise in a bubble mailer, and if it's in the seal, the stone can be damaged. I suspect it's just easier to remove it and properly cushion it.

If someone does ask him to keep it in the seal, please let us know what he says.

I will say that I know someone who sent a few of Tan's gems to the GIA themselves for verification, and they came back as natural, and as described.

 

[LD]

Forget the packaging for a moment and think of it like this ............ if you had bought the stone with another Lab report (that normally comes separate and doesn't have the gem sealed in it) would you be having doubts? The ONLY way to be sure, as everybody else has said is to measure and weigh the gemstone - but then that goes for every gem that comes with a lab report.

 

[T L]

Forget the packaging for a moment and think of it like this ............ if you had bought the stone with another Lab report (that normally comes separate and doesn't have the gem sealed in it) would you be having doubts? The ONLY way to be sure, as everybody else has said is to measure and weigh the gemstone - but then that goes for every gem that comes with a lab report.

LD,
The problem is that I have heard, and as Lady D mentinoed, is that some vendors will make a bunch of memos that have specific dimensions and then cut up a synthetic to match the dimensions. Therefore, weighing and measuring it would not suffice. Someone, a lab or gemologist, would have to look at it to see if it's natural and if they can verifty it's treatment. I don't want to spread paranoia around here, but people should know that vendors do create fake lab memos all the time to go with synthetics. I really like Tan, but I am just of the opinion that verfication is really important, no matter who the vendor is

The reason I mentioned the person that sent Tan's gems to the GIA was to give people that have bought from Tan a little peace of mind. I have five AIGS memos from him that I can verify online. It probably wouldn't be cost effective for him to do this forgery on a widespread basis since he would have to send a natural gem to the lab to get in their verification database, while at the same time, he would send you the fake with the exact dimensions of the natural stone. He would have to do this numerous times since so many people do request lab reports from him.

Now the SLP gem lab thing going around here with another ebay seller, well that is very questionable, and that's why report verification of some sort is important. I can also appreciate that Tan does not use "no name" gem labs, and does use highly reputable and very well known ones. My gut instinct is that it's much easier to spew out a bunch of lab reports from a place you cannot call or find any online information on, then make up ones from very well known gem labs, especially on low priced sales.

 

[Agnesg]

It is not an expensive sapphire, I will give him the benefit of doubt. Thank you for your views.