Treasure Hunting Forum

One of the most fascinating aspects of the treasure-hunting hobby is that related to diamonds. Placing a value on the gems is an intangible task for most people; therein lies the key that makes the buying and trading of diamonds very profitable. Most everyone has heard of the “four Cs” - clarity, color, carats, and cut - but difficulty often arises when the attempt is made to apply these criteria to a particular stone. A mounted stone cannot be accurately graded, so any such judgment is speculative. And once a judgment is made, the pricing of the stone is a difficult process. There are online sites that help educate one on proper grading and pricing, for example, http://www.pricescope.com/ (diamond price comparisons), http://www.wilsondiamonds.com/diamondgrading.html  and 

http://diamonds-guides.com/topics/diamond-grading.html (good educational articles). Once through this process, care should be taken to temper a bid for a stone. Disposing of it for a profit can be a difficult chore for those not actively engaged in the trade.

I recently traded money for an old ring whose stones appeared to be of very high quality. In fact, since zircons look like high-quality diamonds, I considered after the trade that I might have erred in judgment. I had loaned my carbide tip to a friend, so I decided to take the stones to jeweler friend. There he used his small electronic tester to confirm the truth - the stones were diamonds of a very high quality. I told him I had feared they were zircons, and he responded, “Those are old stones - back then, most diamonds were of higher quality than today.” So, my trade turned out to be very profitable after all.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 4th, 2007 @ 2:14 pm on the category Diamonds/stones.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.