
Outside
I mentioned in last week’s blog post that I had wanted to post an evaluation of this stone in it’s place, and had to scramble to post something else instead. Which ended up being great because it kind of leads into this post, because it also has to do with the gemstone personal shopping that being in this business entails.
Again, a huge thank you to Mayer & Watt for their ever gracious nature and massive amount of patience. Which was very much appreciated, since the package got delayed for three extra days and we were all a bit freaked out. To say the least.
I don’t want to talk much in this blog, because the pictures really are the ones that need to do the talking, and I can’t say anything more than they can.
Brief background: This is an “original find” Mahenge spinel. That means that it was mined in about 2007, before the appeal of such a stone was really widespread and it’s broadly thought that the best stones were mined at the very beginning of the find. This particular stone had been on a long term memo, roughly two years. Which means that it sat for sale for 2 years without anyone buying it. Well, as soon as it came back to Mayer & Watt, Geoffrey messaged me excitedly with a “Would any of your clients be interested in this?”
Uh, YEAH they would! It’s a 3.62ct spinel that measures 10.2×7.8. It has eye visible inclusions, but what really pops out at you is the color, and retail pricing for a clean stone that is this color and size would get up to the lower-mid 5 figures.
Let me stop right here and say that if you’re not already, you should be looking at these images on an Apple device, iPad or iPhone because the colors are accurate for those pieces of technology, not really on the average laptop (trust me on this! I’m writing this blog on a laptop with factory settings and the color is not accurate at all!).
Now, as you look at these pictures, please note that I am located in the Pacific Northwest and I have not seen the sun for over a week (fog, snow, and rain however…) so none of these pictures are taken in the sun, and I’m rather disappointed I won’t be able to see it in the sun!
Now that I got that out of my system, here it is with an another “original find” Mahenge (and a small Burmese) that you may recognize:
Finally, an another “original find” Mahenge spinel, from my personal collection, which has a very nice pink color, and is very well saturated:
Looking decidedly desaturated next to this big oval.
Realistically, this is the best color Mahenge spinel I have had the pleasure of playing with, and that includes hundreds of carats of them from when I was at JCK Las Vegas this past spring. It’s just that good!
I hope that this post finds you having a wonderful holiday season, and a very merry Christmas week!
Before I get to the topic for today, I wanted to bring up the actual inspiration behind last week’s gallery post, since it was just completed by my co-collaborator, David Klass. The client had come to be a few months ago about something completely unrelated, and we kept talking about her various other projects. Then we started talking about Paraiba Tourmalines and I’ve been with her every step of the way since then, from consulting on the center stone, to figuring out melee proportions for the various halo sizes, and finally designing and tweaking the gallery. Because this Paraiba tourmaline ring was a once in a lifetime project for her, it was going to have to be incredibly special, classic with clean lines, and a lot of curves. As with many of my projects, the gallery design was in part inspired by my time making pastry and the many hours I have spent practicing piping designs for petit fours.
K, I hope you love it! I think we did a fantastic job and I hope you enjoy it for years to come!
Galleries are so important to making a custom piece super special!
Now, for the topic at hand. I received what I was told was a “pad-like pink-peach” sapphire with “minimal brown”. Now, armed with that information, I will let the pictures do the talking. Which means this will be a very picture heavy post.
With a smaller light brown with peach modifier hessonite garnet.
14kt yellow gold chain
10kt rose gold pendant
Same lighting situation, hand cupped behind it in first pic.
So. The last picture in the gem box is what I saw when I opened the package. It was different enough that I was taken aback – wasn’t this supposed to be a pink-peach sapphire? Did I get the wrong stone? So I took it all over my house, including outside where it turns a champagne/gold in the natural lighting, and inside, in a peach room where it looks peachy brown, and in a pink room where it looks more pink-peach.
Unfortunately the photos aren’t exactly accurate – they are better than what I actually see with my eyes. The champagne gold is more yellow than it comes out in the pics, and the peach-pink is actually less peach-pink and more brown. When I cup my hand around it in diffused daylight with an incandescent light bulb facing it, it looks more peach, but my client was looking for something that is actually a peach-pink with minimal brown. I was prepared for the stone to look less saturated than it looks in pictures, but not brown and certainly not yellow! In daylight, you can see in a couple of the pics that it looks almost the exact same color as the yellow gold ring setting in the picture next to it.
There is a lot of value in being honest in your listings when you are selling gemstones. I don’t think that this vendor intended to be dishonest, and I think that this buyer, my client, probably had expectations for this stone that couldn’t be met without the vendor knowing just how extensive the client’s knowledge and buying experience is.
So, just in case anyone wonders why I don’t use a lot of colorful descriptive terms in my gemstone listings, or get overly flowery or enthusiastic, this is why. I don’t want to elevate customer expectations to the stone being things it isn’t. I try to be painfully honest in my listings, then someone will be delighted when they open it, it’s better than they were expecting.
In other news, I have a whole bunch of prototypes that will be finishing up in the next week or two, including a necklace, which I am over the moon and totally thrilled for.
It’s about to get really exciting over here!