hi everyone,
I was wonder what everyone thought of this gemstone.
It is a natural star sapphire
no heat treatment
origin Burma
approximately 16cts
oval cab cut.
I was wondering what it might be worth and if it is heavily included.
Thankyou.
its to hard to tell you a value over pictures but to me it looks quit nice over pictures. it does look fractured to me over pictures tho.
any idea of the age of this ring? it looks like it could have a little.
but again its hard to authenticate and appraise over photos.
i would think something that size and authentic there will be a stamp on the band somewhere with a trademark and purity
hi,
thankyou
it is stamped 14k
i am not sure about the age.
the 2 other stones are diamonds.
cheers
hi,
I do have lab papers stating that it is no heat treatment and it is of Burma origin.
thx
It’s difficult to photograph star sapphires but yours looks indistinct and possibly abraded thus reducing its value unless repolished. If you have a certificate or valuation that states its old $ value are you expecting that sum if you sold it? Unfortunately, there are a lot of poor quality “stars” in the current market place that are being sold as top notch but are not and therefore affect prices. I suggest you auction your ring because the gold setting and diamonds make the piece saleable.
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The second image shows a nice “small” star just left of center… which leads me to think that the stone is a bit fractured (healed??) and there may be several different c-axis orientations associated with multiple small plates. If you use any search engine looking at “star sapphires” you will see a nice large star covering most of the stone when viewed directly down “c” in a face-up orientation of the ring. I certainly don’t see that in your photos. Photos always are bit ify…but if you can only see separate areas of small stars when you rotate the ring around in a nice light, then it would detract considerable in the value of the stone
Fashion jewelry.
hi,
thankyou.
it only has the 1 star but it is a bit hard to see.
cheers
hi,
When i look at the centre for the star it is a bit blurry but when i move the star around it only has 1 star and it is easy to see.
Thankyou
I think you could easily arrive at an estimated value by looking for similar stones in the marketplace on line. Star sapphires are valued by translucency, color, distinctness of the star, polish quality and cut symmetry. Pricey star sapphires are quite translucent. The inclusions that produce the star make the material somewhat cloudy, but not included or opaque. The color will be top sapphire color, the star quite distince, the polish very bright with an adamantine luster, and the cut quite symmetrical. Two sites that sell commercial sapphire are Gemselect and GemRockAuctions. You can match up your stone with other similar ones there.
Your stone is a good size, but the polish does not look great in your picture, I cannot make out a distinct star, the stone looks opaque and there appear to be numerous healed fractures. The color is a bit dark and with a slight gray modifier. This is just how the picture appears, and I could be wrong in my description. Based on what I saw on offer at Gem Rock Auctions, I’d estimate a value of about $10/ct more or less, guessing that your stone is about 25cts. I could certainly be inaccurate, so you would have to judge the quality of your stone compared to others for sale. Be aware that color means a lot. I saw several stones of a very bright blue that were opaque that went for about $10/ct and your photo looked more of a grayed out blue, but that’s just a guess from the photo and the color might improve if the polish were better.
What you probably have is a cert from a small appraisal operation or an appraisal “mill.” If you haven’t heard of the appraisal organization, that is a clue. A very fine sapphire costing thousands per carat is going to have a cert from GIA or another premium lab with photos and a color grade and lots of detail.
I was admonished for one of my prior posts, which was deemed a little sarcastic by the admins, so I will watch my words. I would like to encourage you and other enthusiasts to think for themselves and search on line for valuations. In general, photos these days are pretty good and it is hard to make a sow’s ear look like a silk purse, so you can usually figure out a lot if you search around and find a consistent set of valuations at reputable sites. As usual, if it seems to good to be true, 99.999% of the time, it is.
I am a dedicated amateur faceter and GIA trained gemologist ('96) but I have learned a lot that GIA didn’t teach me since then. I have been buying rough and cutting since 1996 and at this point I am doing some buying, cutting and selling for money and I’m getting more comfortable with my ability to buy and sell without losing my shirt. I mention this not to burnish my reputation, but to indicate that it takes a lot of study and experience to learn about precious stones. An IGS or GIA course is a start, but then there’s a lot of study and experience with the actual stones before you really know what you are doing. IGS can give you a valuation table, but it doesn’t tell you what the premium colors are which you need to recognize. It doesn’t tell you what market forces did to tourmaline this year. It doesn’t show you how there is one overseas wholesale market and another local American retail market. And so on. That and a lot of other things are stuff that you learn by doing. I’ll never forget the time I started to cut a large pink tourmaline which I started to rough out on a coarse lap. When I started to look into the stone as I cut facets on a fine lap, I saw all kinds of little flickers inside the stone like snow in a snow globe. I had never been told how easy it is to internally fracture a tourmaline when rough cutting it. So an internally flawless stone became a VS2 stone before it was even started. I guess all of us veterans have some stories like this to tell. The moral of the story is, of course, that there is no substitute for experience. My rant ends here and I hope I have helped rather than hurt. I hope the OP and all of you enjoy the jewelry that you have. -royjohn
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Hi,
I hoped to find a contact like you here.
