3.95ct Pink Sapphire

[gemtastic]

I am envious of your photography skills--love the second set of pictures. I do enjoy reading your posts--they are extremely helpful and well written. Also congratulations on the wedding--also loved seeing those pictures in your other thread!

 

[Justin_Cutter]

I looked at the first pic and thought 'nice', then I looked at the fluor shot and thought 'oooooh!', and finally I saw the first leaf shot and thought 'ooOOOOOooooh!'. Could you take a picture with it on a hand please? I'm assuming it'll be a ring.
Very nice of you to hunt this down for your 'mum'. Lucky lady.

Thank you also for your gem show thread. Informative and drool-worthy.

Yes it will be set hopefully within the next month. Thank You!
Here ya go. A little bit of Fluor action.


~Justin

 

[Justin_Cutter]

The new eye candy is fabulous. The sun really amped up the colour and the green backdrop gave it excellent contrast. The picture quality is only something I can envy; so in focus, sharp and detailed.

Thanks Chrono, It was really fun and with the help of my Wife I think they turned out pretty good. It just takes so much patience haha! Usually I am just so excited to show PS that I just snap a couple shots and post them up.

~Justin

 

[minousbijoux]

The new eye candy is fabulous. The sun really amped up the colour and the green backdrop gave it excellent contrast. The picture quality is only something I can envy; so in focus, sharp and detailed.

Thanks Chrono, It was really fun and with the help of my Wife I think they turned out pretty good. It just takes so much patience haha! Usually I am just so excited to show PS that I just snap a couple shots and post them up.

That is a common phenomenon, lol! We are bursting to share!

 

[Justin_Cutter]

The new eye candy is fabulous. The sun really amped up the colour and the green backdrop gave it excellent contrast. The picture quality is only something I can envy; so in focus, sharp and detailed.

Thanks Chrono, It was really fun and with the help of my Wife I think they turned out pretty good. It just takes so much patience haha! Usually I am just so excited to show PS that I just snap a couple shots and post them up.

That is a common phenomenon, lol! We are bursting to share!

Haha! Good to know I am not alone!

 

[Justin_Cutter]

I am envious of your photography skills--love the second set of pictures. I do enjoy reading your posts--they are extremely helpful and well written. Also congratulations on the wedding--also loved seeing those pictures in your other thread!

Thank you gemtastic! I sometimes worry that I have written to much, but it's nice to know someone enjoys the reading too.
~Justin

 

[deorwine]

I looooove your pictures and posts -- and what a beautiful gorgeous sapphire! Please feel free to post as much as you want

 

[Justin_Cutter]

I looooove your pictures and posts -- and what a beautiful gorgeous sapphire! Please feel free to post as much as you want

deorwine, Thank you that is very kind!
~Justin

 

[VAgemguy]

Bill & Elke are great & Bill is especially interested in rare & unusual stones. I once spent about an hour talking to him about red beryl and benitoite - very knowledgeable. I've found his pricing to be little above market in the past, but it sounds like you got a decent deal. Nice job!

 

[minousbijoux]

Hi VAGemguy Since you know the market, have priced sapphires and find Vance a little higher than market, can you tell us some of the vendors where you've seen good pricing? TIA

 

[VAgemguy]

Hi MB, I should clarify that I haven't been shopping for sapphires with Vance. At prior intergem shows, I have been coveting some of his tanzanites & merelani garnets. Both of those stones were offered at $1000+ per carat, and I got the sense that negotiation was expected. I think that the same principles apply to most of his inventory. He generally has good material & he knows it. I think that around $1000 per carat for an unheated pink of that size & color isn't a bad deal by any measure, for whatever that's worth.

 

[minousbijoux]

Thanks, but then I'll ask it another way - when you go to shows, what vendors would you recommend for highly competitive pricing?

ETA: competitive pricing for whatever gem quality stones you seek?

I am always looking to add to my vendor list. I find, however, that there is not consistent overlap in vendors so would love to learn about new ones.

Thanks!

 

[VAgemguy]

Sorry for the partial answer - I guess I wasn't fully caffeinated earlier! Not sure if you are referring to the fact that different vendors attend some shows but not others, or that some vendors specialize in stones that others may not. Either way, I agree that it makes for challenging shopping and difficult apples-to-apples comparisons. I've found that Prima Gems has very fair pricing at the shows and service is good to boot. They specialize in garnet, tanzanite, chrysoberyl, spinel, and zircon, as you may already know. They also have sapphires and other stones, but the East African stones are their sweet spot. I also spent some time at B&B gems at a recent show and they had many sapphires (mostly blue) at reasonable prices. I didn't get in to a negotiation with them, but they had 3ish carat unheated blues (tone was a little darker than i wanted, but still pretty stones) for around $1500 per carat (that was their initial asking price, so I assume further discount would have been available if I were ready to write a check right then). I will visit their booth again next time to explore a bit more. All of that should of course be taken with the appropriate grain of salt, since everyone has different tastes, criteria, and budget.

And just so my earlier comments regarding Vance are clear, I like them and think they sell nice stuff. Their sales model in my experience follows the "start really high and haggle" approach, which doesn't really bother me but I could envision some people being averse to it. Doing your research, as always, is key I guess!

Sorry for the threadjack, btw!

 

[minousbijoux]

Thank you - I really appreciate your thorough response.

Sometimes I think about whether its frustrating for members when they talk prices, because often, the implication is that they could've done better. The reality is that the price is a function of that location - those vendors and the quality of their inventory - basically the supply - at that given show. The prices are (obviously) a function of who's there, what they have to offer and how much they're willing to negotiate, if at all. At the smaller gem shows, well, your choices might just not be that great.

I am NOT saying this applies to you in any way, by the way! I just thought I'd piggyback on your experience as an East Coaster who knows vendors to see if the choice was in general, better, worse or the same as here. Unfortunately, we don't get Prima , but we DO get New Era Gems (I think that's the good one with the garnet specialist, though I'm not sure I'm remembering it correctly right now).

I'd love to find a new stone specialist, like opal, at the show, but it seems like its the same old vendors every time.

 

[VAgemguy]

I'm glad you mentioned pricing... PS is a wealth of knowledge, but sure doesn't have a lot of recent pricing information (maybe that's against the rules?). I suspect you are right though - as soon as someone says that they paid $x for a stone, there will inevitably be posts like " I paid way less for mine 5 years ago before they were popular" or something similar. And then others who paid more will feel like they got ripped off. Maybe if the board had a special forum where we could log in anonymously and post basic specs and price paid. Of course every colored stone has unique attributes that affect price, but at least we would be able to establish a reasonable ballpark. Probably many of us compile this sort of information on our own as best we can, but it would be great to share it in a constructive way.

 

[minousbijoux]

Gemguy: you raise some really good points and I would agree that it would be great to have such a resource. The problem is finding an objective way in which stones can be judged, as so often even here we see cases where someone will show a stone that they think is outstanding and others think its not at all. Until we figure out a way to account for this, it is likely that such a database would be overstated for quality and therefore understated for price, unfortunately.

 

[chrono]

Price per carat will depend on the quality, the overhead of the dealer, how much the dealer paid for it, how quickly the dealer wants to move that stone, the relationship between customer and dealer (frequent or new), how good a negotiator the customer is and more. As you can see, it isn't as easy as it seems.

 

[LD]

Price per carat will depend on the quality, the overhead of the dealer, how much the dealer paid for it, how quickly the dealer wants to move that stone, the relationship between customer and dealer (frequent or new), how good a negotiator the customer is and more. As you can see, it isn't as easy as it seems.

+1

 

[Justin_Cutter]

Update!

I visited my jeweler yesterday to check on the progress of the ring and it is coming along nicely!

My "2nd Mom" decided she really liked the look of a halo'd split shank setting. With that made known I said leave it to me! Once I found a design that I liked I commissioned the ring in Platinum. The ring should be finished by the end of next week.

I will come back with pictures!

~Justin

 

[minousbijoux]

Looking forward to it - I very much like split shanks, particularly on cushions.

 

[Justin_Cutter]

I picked up the ring today and its gorgeous! I will probably make a new thread for it to keep things clean and organized. Really taking by time trying to take high quality accurate shots. Lots of eye candy to follow!!! Thanks for the support everyone!
~Justin

 

[Justin_Cutter]

Here is the link to the new thread!
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/3-95ct-pink-sapphire-platinum-ring-vance-gems.187760/
~Justin