When your eBay buy isn’t as expected.

[Bron357]

A lot of us have been there I’m sure.
I’ve been an eBay fan for over 20 years and have made some great buys and also a few spectacular fails.
My stunning spessartite ring always comes to mind, so pleased with myself I was. Until I learnt that not only do sapphires come in orange, lab sapphires come in orange and that was what I had. Oops.
Then the alexandrite bracelet. Gawd, worst 9 days of my life as I watched and waited for the auction countdown. I think I upped my high bid half a dozen times, very unlike me I’m a one bid and let it roll gal, and I literally felt sick going to sleep that night (time zone difference) to find out the next morning if I was successful or not.
I was.
Recently I bought a pendant.
That’s another thing I do, I have quite a few gems needing new homes and I’m always on the look out for setting to reuse with one of my gems. I’ve done a few rings along the way. Getting settings made is expensive and I’m a miser so the cheap as chips little pendant with tiny diamonds with a pink centre (lab? Glass?) looked like a goer.
And it was because, surprise, the pink centre isn’t lab it’s actually natural.

 

[Mreader]

That’s beautiful and I adore the color! What a great find

 

[Rfisher]

It’s pretty.
Is this one of the cases of EBay authenticating its a natural sapphire?

 

[glitterata]

That happened to me too! I bought an art deco platinum ring with a pair of "lab" purple sapphires for the setting. Turned out the sapphires are natural, according to the GIA authentication and confirmed by a gemologist friend (and my own eyes seeing natural inclusions).

What does your pretty pink stone turn out to be? A sapphire?

 

[oncrutchesrightnow]

Oh cool! Lucky you!

 

[Bron357]

It’s pretty.
Is this one of the cases of EBay authenticating its a natural sapphire?

No, thankfully here in Australia we don’t get/ have that. Ive heard that it’s an absolute sh** fight for poor sellers in the US. I looked at it under the microscope.

 

[Bron357]

That happened to me too! I bought an art deco platinum ring with a pair of "lab" purple sapphires for the setting. Turned out the sapphires are natural, according to the GIA authentication and confirmed by a gemologist friend (and my own eyes seeing natural inclusions).

What does your pretty pink stone turn out to be? A sapphire?

Yes, a sapphire, it has rutile and inclusions. I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be anything so it was a pleasant surprise. Of course now I can’t use the setting for an unset gem and instead I’m now going “ooh, wonder what that would look like in a ring”.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

thats so so so pretty
are you going to wear it as is or still replace the stone ?
i see we are thinking about a ring now

TRade me has not been kind to me
im still smarting from finding out i had art deco glass instead of aquas and peridot, glad i scarped it, even if i did loose money , it was making me angry

oh and my cheery amber that turned out to be cheery amber bakalite - at least that stuff holds its value
so i was recently over joyed to recieve my $8 cameo of Elizabeth and Philip that was indeed ......plastic (vintage plastic mind you)