I have an estate piece that I instantly thougt ‘aqua!’ But i am no gemologist and would like to be certain. Any thoughts here?
There really is no way to tell from a photo…you will have to have someone with some knowledge look at it in person. An RI reading would help. The color and the inclusions and the rather poor polish do not suggest aqua to me, tho’. Possibly jade? But that is just a guess…it could be aqua. -royjohn
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yea. i just thought maybe some one or some ones would have a good clue by experience. It is a rather dull polish on the exterior. however its a 20 year old ring about and was being tumbled around with other jewelry items. i never thought of jade. interesting. i will have a look into that. thanks Roy.
If the dullness is due to wear, you will probably see better polished areas near the edge where it was difficult for contact to occur. It just looks like the kind of polish you sometimes end up with on jade. It’s a rather dark blue and grayed out color and I haven’t seen that on aqua. The lighter, opaque areas look more like a pattern sometimes seen in jade than typical aqua inclusions. Also, you often see jade in rings like this with a diamond surround. If those are real diamonds and gold, it suggests a rather expensive piece, in which case I would suspect jadeite jade. Aqua that looked like this would not be worth much. Those are all just suggestive tells. Jadeite has a much higher RI than aqua and nephrite can come close to overlapping with aqua, but that would be unusual…an RI spot reading is the best idea to ID. -royjohn
The owner of the ring remembers it being a tourmaline. As she bought a lot of pieces from the same jeweler, who specialized in Maine tourmaline. Unfortunately, he is no longer around. I am looking into further and further!
Try to be one, it’s fun too!
The color and the inclusions look like an Aquaprase cab that I recently saw in person; however a photo doesn’t show an accurate picture of the visible properties of the gemstone.
a gemologist? yea…i’ll get right on it.
This gemstone looks like larimar. The beautiful aqua blue with cloudy inclusions, the size, surrounded with “diamonds” & the “gold” setting remind me of the first entry of this underappreciated pectolite into the mainstream of appreciated gemstones.
ya’ll crack me up.
On another note, interesting observation, however, its not larimar.
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