Treasures (Or Not) - Mystery Sapphires

[jenzgemz]

Found too many treasures this weekend, and am now trying to learn more about what I have!



So, this handful of fantasticness has a fun story. Local pawn shop owner revealed to me that he has a "personal collection of stones", taken from scrap gold before he scraps it. He knew I was looking for an 8mm round stone and thought I might find his collection interesting. Apparently he has never shown it to a customer before, not sure what impelled him to trust me enough to break out the tackle box of random gemstones, but I found myself sifting by the handful through piles of loose, dirty, and VALUABLE gemstones he accumulated over 14+ years of scrapping gold. I was stunned. Speechless. And trying not to drool. I'm sure the security cameras have my wide eyed face trying to contain itself.

Didn't find anything in the size I was looking for, and was trying not to overstep, but these stones stood out to me. Walked away with these four sapphires, and a small tanzanite. Next project - finding out whether these are lab created or natural! Seeing a jeweler on Friday to get their take on it. I have a SmartPro Gemeye, which shows these as sapphire. Doesn't mean they are natural, but what fun finding out!

 

[CaseyLouLou]

Nice! It’s likely they are natural. What did he charge you?

 

[jenzgemz]

Nice! It’s likely they are natural. What did he charge you?

Thanks! Well, when asked what he would take for the five stones, he said "I don't know, how about $20". I offered more, he insisted on staying at $20. Maybe my deep appreciation of his collection was his payment, combined with some of the advice I gave him. (Such as turning down a $5k offer from a jeweler friend who wanted the entire lot). I did share with him where to start with evaluating some of the stones that may be worth that on their own.

I regret throwing back some of the stones I liked, but was also trying to respect the situation and not go "stone-crazy"

 

[jenzgemz]

Here's a short video clip, better lighting:

 

[VividRed]

At that price they are probably synthetic.

If not, amazing deal! Let us know what you find out!

 

[pokerface]

Nice! It’s likely they are natural. What did he charge you?

Really curious why you would say this. If they were all in scrap gold settings, the chance of them being synthetic is like 98%+. When you factor in the price, that chance goes up to about 99.9%. A jewelry dealer is not going to sell a $2000 stone for $20.

 

[CaseyLouLou]

Really curious why you would say this. If they were all in scrap gold settings, the chance of them being synthetic is like 98%+. When you factor in the price, that chance goes up to about 99.9%. A jewelry dealer is not going to sell a $2000 stone for $20.

I didn’t know the price she paid when I said that but it’s possible that the seller didn’t know what he had and all he cared about was the scrap gold. The sapphires look better in the video than in the photos but the color in the photos looked pretty dark and usually synthetic stones are vivid and don’t have many inclusions. I could be wrong but it’s definitely possible they are natural.

 

[pokerface]

IMO, the vast majority of the time, if a pawn shop is buying jewelry for scrap value, it is buying 9k or 10k pieces where the center stone does not have any real value. There are plenty of dark synthetic sapphires floating around out there - many women prefer them because Princess Diana's ring is a dark blue. It is hard to tell what these stones look like, even in the video. Maybe there is some chance that the small stones are Thai blue sapphires, but if the seller thought so, he probably wouldn't have dismantled the ring and sold it for scrap. Given the info here, even absent the price point, I don't see how it makes sense to state that these gems are "likely natural."

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

what a fun afternoon you must have had
best wishes that these turn out to be natural, but if not so what ?
they are still pretty

when i scraped some rings the diamonds and gemstones were returned to me