I just came across this video about how a local Albuquerque gold buyer recognized a stolen necklace, and got it back to the owner.
I think this happened about 6 years ago.
As an aside, the newscaster Royale Dá is the great granddaughter of the famous potter Maria Martinez from San Ildefonso Pueblo.
Fascinating that this necklace was appraised at $250K. Does this sound plausible to our in-the-trade experts here? Yes I see it has gold.
How interesting that the dealer was himself one of the defendants subject to forfeiture in the massive lawsuit against the counterfeit traders at Zuni.
It’s typical to place extremely high values on stolen goods. I think it helps in the prosecution of the thief. Not to defend the thief but true value is what an item cost, wholesale, or at least a realistic resale value, not a pie in the sky arbitrary retail value, but that’s how our social system works and it looks better in print. In my opinion even in gold I have a hard time swallowing $250K. The stones look like the vintage Kingman cabs I purchased from IJS in the 80s.
Maybe they should provide reference (in print) of similar sales as to valuation.
Ha! I did not know about that. I could not wade through all the legal mumbo jumbo to decipher how that all ended.