Hello,
here comes the second guessing game.
The seller has cut and polished the stones, and purchased them from the mine. All stones are from THE SAME MINE. I know the mine.
Rules of the game:
Sounds like fun? Let’s go. A lot to learn.
This material looks Persian. Best guess is Damghan region, although at least of couple of the stones look like Nishpur.
Ithaca peak twice to get words
Let’s solve the second riddle.
Mine: Neyshabur mine in Iran (Persia).
Prices including shipping, handling, all fees and 20% of import tax to Germany.
And the winner of this guessing game is @mmrogers. Congrats!
Update: white balance also corrected here.
Fair price, I guess?
Overall, seems a bit high by US standards, but we so rarely see Persian here It’s impossible to say what the market is for that material.
Oops, I was assuming that 1-4 Dollars per carat is a great price for this quality of gems from Neyshabur … on the other hand, shipping, fees and taxes added about an extra 61% of cost, based on the initial price on eBay.
Example: the first two gems have been $70, and all in all I paid $112, that is $20 for insured S&H and eBay fees, and $22 for import tax and disbursement fee.
My error. I was reading a total of $308 for the batch.
1 - 4 $ a carat is quite reasonable for some of the stones in the batch, and overall there is good color in most of the stones, however the large areas of matrix and extreme color variation in some of the stones offset the value and salability of the batch overall.
If you are into the entire batch for $112, I think you did quite well.
$308 full price all together for 2+5+12 jems.
25+45+70=140ct, on average $2.20 per carat.
I’ve put checkmarks next to the stones which are IMO most commercially desirable and marketable in this batch.
Some of the others have great color, but to get the best value out of these, I would probably recut them to eliminate large areas of matrix. I’d end up with far fewer carats from these stones but also with actual gem grade material which would be far more valuable to prospective buyers.
Thanks a lot for the explanation.
Interestingly I love those ones most (green checkmark)
Completely understand. There are some very interesting stones in this batch.
Our perspectives are very different. By trade and training, I focus on maximizing value by immediately assessing which stones within a batch of turquoise are most likely to sell first when set in a piece of jewelry and bring the highest return per dollar invested, rather than what I find personally interesting and unique within each stone.
Sunshine shows the real beauty, even though I have learnt that the cutter has not done a very good job … optimized for yield not gem grade. Below the line a great purchase though.
Especially seeing that for example this gem was about $30 all inclusive (12.2ct), this was a great deal.
