Tourmaline and Jadeite

What would the expected value be of the tourmaline and Jadeite? About 2000 carats of tourmaline and 1100 carats of jadeite


Hi Elijah,

Welcome to the community!

Looks like you have a large parcel of gemstones. :grin:

With your membership, you have access to the Gem Price Guide, and the Gem Buying Guides here at IGS.

There are several other on-line resources, too. I suggest looking at the IGS resources first, then explore some on-line venues for comparable asking prices. Be mindful, that some sellers on various on-line markets will present some extreme prices.

The appraisal for the stones you have will vary individually, depending on the unique characteristics and charm of each one.

Cheers!

Troy

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Hi, Troy!

Thanks for reaching out and the helpful advice!!

I have a significant collection of gems, rough, and minerals that I will be selling off……plenty of homework to do!

I also have the same problem… I have to dispose of a pile of unset stones and precious metals.
the gem pricing guides give a wide range. The range is huge depending on the quality of each individual stone. It’s far more complicated than anyone can think… comparing online sales asking and bid prices are also not easy… there will be a wide range and photos can’t tell the whole story. both tourmalines and jadeite tend to go for cheaper especially of low quality. Highest quality stones can fetch prices comparable to traditional precious stones. good luck on finding out what it’s all worth.

Steve / Elijah (@ElijahD14616)

For facetted stones only, this is one of the better payware (membership tier) pricing platforms I am using. Not cheap, but the investment using a monthly subscription could pay for itself, to establish prices for your inventory.

Cheers!

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I love GemVal. I have used them in the past. They are great if you have the pro account where you can upload the gemstone picture, all your results of your testing plus you can list a certificate of your gemstone. I have heard of dealers listing their stones this was and linking the listing to their website to sell.
I agree that it is expensive but you do get a fairly good market price if you honestly input the gemstone’s particulars.

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I to use GemVal, been a member for quite a few years now. Of the many many un-set stones I have collected through the years, I have had 13 certified but have not sold any yet. I have mentioned them on here, but no responses as of yet. I am just an amateur gemstone collector, (buying from on-line auctions and estate sales). Selling some, would allow me to have more certified and so on. This is not a business, just a hobby. L.W.McQueary / email is oldtroll57@gmail.com

 Let me say something here which may clarify why gemstone pricing is so difficult. First there is accurately describing a cut colored stone. For faceted stones, this involves carat weight (easy), color (difficult, esp. with high end stones where small gradations involve hundreds of dollars per carat), clarity/inclusions (also difficult, esp. without expert use of a loupe or gem microscope...and sometimes immersion fluid) and cut (also difficult to judge, because it includes light pattern, face-up and tilt brilliance, scintillation and dispersive fire, not to mention windowing and extinction, which are parts of light return/brilliance and, lastly, polish). It should be noted that clarity includes inclusions and diaphaneity, which is how clear the material is...that is, whether it is bright or plagued by cloudiness due to microscopic inclusions you cannot see. With cabs, sometimes phenomenon stones look best when translucent rather than completely transparent, because microscopic inclusions cause an adularescence, eye or star. So you have a lot of things to judge correctly and that takes practice and probably seeing lots of stones, which most collectors don't...

 Then you have the problem of markets. There are various wholesale markets and various retail markets. If you are selling parcels of stones to jewelers or distributors who will pass lots or individual stones on, that's one market and it may vary by country and region, too. It may also vary depending on where and how the stone is sold. A company selling from a jewelry supply catalog is a different price from selling from a website to the same clientele and so is selling on FB groups or Instagram or TikTok or whatever. Collectors may be able to buy from the same people and in the same places as jewelers...or not...depending on whether they have a business or a tax number. Some sellers restrict in this way and others do not. Individual stones will sell at higher prices if they are high quality, but low quality stones don't do very well sold individually, often. There are sites (e.g., Gemselect.com, I think) which are maybe low retail and sell unmounted stones to whoever...maybe some jewelers buy mid-level goods there, along with collectors who just treasure the loose stones and those who have a jeweler with whom they work for setting. Market prices may be influenced by the credit offered, and the "memo" wholesale price is definitely higher than the price at wholesale shows and esp. higher than the parcel price. Stones in mounted jewelry are usually sold to the end consumer and they will be highest prices, with a markup on both the stones and the mounting over their separate wholesale price. The type of jewelry store and the craftsmanship of the mounting will also influence the markup taken on the gem sometimes. Jewelry stores which offer sustained service after the sale, such as trade-in at full value when you buy up on a new piece, free annual cleaning and possibly free re-pronging will often charge a premium over stores which do not.

 So you can see why it gets so hairy to try to figure out a reasonable sale price. In the end, as jewelry and other appraisers say, the price if often determined by a willing buyer and a willing seller. I just agreed to take a collection of stones for re-sale. These are lots of various sized calibrated faceted and cabbed stones which the artist/craftsman used to set in sophisticated and impeccably done designer silver jewelry at a price point of about $100 to $400 per piece. He had a casting machine capable of casting as much as 400 grams of silver or gold at a time, so he cranked out a LOT of jewelry, which is why he had so many stones...he bought in bulk to keep his costs down. Unless I want to hold these stones for years until I can design jewelry for all of them and set them all (and I don't!) I'll have to sell them to jewelers who sell the same kinds of pieces that the jeweler I got them from did. Fortunately, I know at least one person like that and know where to find others. Just one example of one market and the pricing in it. In this market, all I have to do to unload these parcels is find the right jewelers, make the parcels a convenient size, take the kind of payments they want to give me, and price a little to considerably below whoever they have been purchasing from before...that might be Stuller or a similar jewelry supply company or it might be at local gem shows or big shows like Tucson and Las Vegas and NYC.

 When you use a pricing app/system, you have to be aware of their target market. Gemval's is internet avg pricing, whatever that is. You can ask them and they will tell you how they figure it. If you use Gemworld International, they use a jeweler's wholesale "memo" price, which means a rather high wholesale. I think GemEWizard is similar to Gemworld.

 Sp, in summary, all you have to do is become an expert gemologist and then frequent gemstone markets until your eyeballs fall out. I hope this is helpful. DM if you have questions, clarifications or outright disagreements. -royjohn

Apologies if my last post came out double spaced. IDK how that happened and I don’t know how to fix it.
-royjohn

So would $10 per carat be too outrageous of a price for everything?