some emeralds...heh.

[donato]

i do realize that i'm suppose to only post diamond questions here, but this matter is very important to me. my father just passed away at age 96. in his will i recieved many gem stones, and some of which are well...rather huge. in his will, he wrote that the emeralds below are crown jewels from india, or something like that. the smallest emerald here is 62.54 carats and the biggest is 90.2 carats. should i sell these? should i hang on to them? how much are they worth? who could i sell them to??

 

[dimonbob]

Hello donato and welcome to Pricescope.

Those emeralds are huge and the color on four of them seems very good. The question is are they natural and what grade are they.

You would need to take them to a good gemologist appraiser to find out and how much they are worth.

If they are natural emeralds and not treated they could be worth a considerable amount of $$$. There are some emerald dealers that would love to get their hands on them.

 

[donato]

Yeah, they are natural and they have never been treated with oils or anything like that. They were on an ancient indian majaraja crown or something. The average of them all is 80 carats!

 

[Hest88]

Get them appraised first, then you can figure out what to do.

 

[CaptAubrey]

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On 4/8/2004 9:16:00 AM donato wrote:





Yeah, they are natural and they have never been treated with oils or anything like that. They were on an ancient indian majaraja crown or something. The average of them all is 80 carats!
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actually, clarity enhancement with oil is an ancient practice, so it is likely that they were oiled at some point. however, if indeed they are that old, the oil has almost certainly evaporated after all these years.

get them appraised by an independent gemologist, not someone who buys or sells stones. if they're what you think, they're worth a heap of money. and if you can establish their provence as relics of indian royalty (which may be difficult to impossible), they could be worth even more.

 

[Nicrez]

Also, stones with history as such will most likely fetch a far better price and a better buying audience if you contact auction houses who deal with antiquities, once you have verified their origins and authenticity.

First step in an independant appraiser's estimate. If all is still good, then contact Christie's, Sotheby's, Philip's auction houses, and find out what they offer, individually. Then, if you feel you would like to sell them, you can do so. My friend recently sold something through Sotheby's and they had an excellent and helpful experience.

If they are a set, they may fetch more. See if you have anything to prove their origin, either documents, pictures, etc...the more you have as proof, the better your chances of fetching a better price. Good luck and let us know what happens!!!

 

[Nicrez]

Another thought. If you can find out where they are mined from or how old they are, that could also impact the value of the stones. Although they could have come from Indian, they could also have been mined in Columbia, Brazil, Pakistan or Afghanistan.

There is a test for this where researchers use oxygen isotopes to "fingerprint" emeralds. Isotopes are slight variations of the elements. They use an ion microprobe oxygen isotopic analysis, using an electron ion beam, where them bombard the emerald in order to dislodges oxygen ions from the crystal lattice of the gem, which can be collected and analyzed. This determines the origin of the gemstone.

I had heard of a researcher who does work like this.
He recently did this for some jeweles that were said to have been Emerald crown jewels of India as well. His name is Gaston Guiliani

 

[valeria101]

Whatever they are, a handful of large emeralds is no joke.

One looks close to incredible (smallest, wide one). Is there any inclusioon in the thing? Just for fun you might want to try and see how long it takes to get a pair of larger, high quality emeralds. Not that there is a flood of singles either, but pairing up sets of three is not very straight forward. Hold on

 

[innerkitten]

They look really nice in the photo.
I'd love to hear what the appraiser says. Please keep us posted