Emeralds:

The ROUGH Emerald stone in the photo to me is not worth much.
You will lose about 60$ when it is cut into a Gem Grade finshed stone.
I cannot believe they added CZ's and are still asking so such.
I have a small box of CZ's that I paid about $12.00 FOR.
CZ's are man ade but a ZERCON is not.
If the emerald is 6.30 carats rough then you will end up with a 3.78 cut stone. The problem with emeralds is that they all have serious faults and this stone is no exception.
To me this stone is a piece of crap.
PEG LEG
 

Peg
Go to www.emeraldsinternational.com Then click on... how to buy an emerald. There you will find an accurate explanation of your so called FLAWS.
Manuel Marcial, Who owns emeralds international was the chief appraiser of the Atocha stones. He worked the mines in Columbia as a young man. Consequently his knowledge, experience and expertise are highly regarded.
Splash,
Donovan
 

DONOVAN.
When a stone has a crack of any kind it is FLAWED.
I DO NOT dispute Manual Marcial in anyway. WHAT I AM saying is that the emerald being offered is priced way to high and I feel assured that Mr. Marcial would NOT put a single CZ in any of his designed Jewelry.
I could really care less about anything with the name ATOCHA written on it. A piece of TRASH is still a piece of TRASH .
Download and enlarge the photo of the stone in question. It is plane to see that the CLARITY and the COLOR are not consistant and who in their right mind would consider buying a Emerald without it being GIA CERTIFIED,
I purchased Diamonds in West Africa along with Rubies and Saopphires so I am not a dummy when it comes to Gem Stones.Thanks for the information.
Peg Leg
 

Hey Peg, I'm really surprised at your reply. Marilyn Monroe said a diamond is a girls best friend but Elizabeth Taylor was crazy about emeralds! The Spaniards used to just polish the sides of a green beryl so they wouldn't lose that much stone material. That is called a "cabochon." The late Bobby Allison (Mr. Treasure) had a 21 carat gold herringbone necklace with a 8 real Atocha coin surrounded by a gold frame hanging off it, with a 6 carat polished emerald stone (cabochon) mounted in the corner. When I first saw it, it took my breath away! Read the "how to buy an emerald" article at Emeralds Intnl. and it may change your mind.
 

Pete that is fine for some people but what I am saying is that this stone is a very low grade emerald and by adding CZ's it becomes a piece of custom jewelry no matter what the price they are asking.
I understand what a CABOCHON is and the emerald has not been polished. It is a BLOCK of rough emerald that has been set in a ring.
Have you evey seen a CABOCHON DIAMOND :-\( AND I DOUBT YOU EVEY WILL). THERE ARE A FEW STONES THAT HAVE TO BE CABOCHONS LIKE A STAR SAPPHIRE OR STAR RUBY. So as far as I know these are the only TOP grade gem stone that are polished into CABOCHONS.
My POINT is that this is a cheap EMERALD and NOT a TOP GRADE EMERALD.
I suggest before anyone purchase,s ANY Gem Stone that is be G.I.A CERTIFIED.
That is what I am saying also if somethig comes from the ATOCHA that does not mean it is PRICELESS.
The same thing applies to coins. Why is the price for a coin from the ATOCHA priced so much higher that the same type coin from the 1715 fleet.
PEG LEG
 

A rough stone is called a "natural stone". The seller on ebay admits that this is a large but low grade stone. High or low grade, it is still a piece of history. It is in effect an instant heirloom.
What is history worth ?
I suggest that asking such a high price is simply a sales strategy. Any seller will ask a high price then settle on a lower price if he gets a solid offer above his bottom line.
The Atocha stones that were auctioned by Christies ranged from 5 carats to 22 carats and varied from $ 2000 to $ 25,000 appraised value. They were higher quality stones than the one on ebay. Auction appraisals are usually conservative and are sort of a fire sale price. Often sale prices realized are several times the educted guestimate.
I had a Gold scallop shell pendent from the Margarita that was appraised by several auction houses at around $ 50,000. Since I wanted to get a better than appraised price, I asked $150,000 for it. It was fun to wear at cocktail parties. Eventually a well known financier offered me $115,000. I took it. My sales strategy worked.
Cheers,
Donovan
 

Peg,
I forgot....You wanted to know why the Atocha coins were valued higher than 1715 coins.
When we were ready to set the prices on Atocha coins, in 1975, we had no criteria to base our prices on. After doing a bunch of homework on various coin values and prices we realized that it was in the best interest of coin dealers to keep the prices low so they could create large blocks of coins in their own collections. Since coins generally go up in value over a period of time they could keep their stash out of circulation and make the prices rise.
Mel's 1715 finds were valued by his tax people on a cost accounting basis. What he spent on recovery was applied to the coins for tax purposes since 1963.
In the case of the Atocha coins, we discovered that the coins from the Lucya beach finds in the Bahamas were close in age and quality to our own coins. American Express bought the bulk of those coins to use as a promotion for their credit cards. The idea was to get a well to do card holder to put a coin on their amex card and have a unique gift for someone special. When we saw the prices were so much higher than what the coin dealers wanted to pay and that all the coins sold out at those prices we realized that coin dealers were not our market. Plus, cost accounting on atocha was a lot different than 1715 costs. We had to go out 30 miles and stay a week or so to get any work done..... High costs....1715 sites were just offshore and you could go out in the morning and be snug in bed that night....Low costs.
Thus the difference in price.
Cheers,
Donovan
 

Peg,
Something else I forgot. Go to the GIA's website... type in... emeralds... and article number 94 is all about Atocha emeralds.
Cheers,
Donovan
 

Morning everyone,
When I started this topic I was looking for information on what ships may have been carrying emeralds I DID NOT intend to get involved in the value of emeralds but as most of my topics things has a tendency to go astray and often the subject get changred.
To be honest when certain things come up I get carrried away and get involved.
Let me say this to those that may be interested.
I could care less about what the ATOCHA carried.
I could care less what items are priced that are recovered from any shipwreck.
Some of the items recovered from the ATOCHA are priced in the twilight zone but that is MARKETING. You charge whatever the market will bear.
BUT before I would even consider the purchase any Gem Stone it must be G.I.A. CERTIFIED unless I were dealing with ROUGH stones and dealing in volume.
Thanks for all the responses.
Peg Leg
 

Pegleg...

Okay, I am interested in emeralds, as in finding them. So, a question that I posed before and did not get a thorough answer to (not becuase members did not make an effort, rather I didn't understand):

Emeralds flouresce under UV/black light... do rough uncut respond, and can the light source cut through salt water and pick up targets at depth?

Thanks.

Mark
 

Starspliter,
I just checked with Emeralds international about florescence. Emeralds do not fluoresce under black light.
Sorry.
 

Peg,
The largest collection of Spanish Colonial documents in the States, that pertain to Florida and to shipwrecks, is at the Saint Augustine Foundation, which is part of Flagler college.
Many are copies from the Spanish archives in Seville, Madrid and several private collections. There are also translations in their data base.
Enjoy,
Donovan
 

DONOVAN,
Thanks for the information.
I go to St. Augustine all the time.
PEG LEG
 

Mark,

The real answer is that a very few emeralds flouresce, and even then only a hint of it. They really couldn't be detected at depth because of their small size. IF it was pitch black, with perfect viz, and you had an insanely powerful U/V light, and the emerald happened to be laying on top of the sand...then you'd have about a 1 in a million shot at seeing it. U/V is just not the way to go about finding them. I bounced an idea off of some of our aerospace engineers for locating them...and they thought it had some merit, so we checked into it. It works on cut emeralds, but I don't have any rough emeralds to try it on.

There are still billions of dollars worth of them out there...even at PegLeg's market value (which are much more correct than Mel Fishers, but hey, Mel sells them at his prices, so who's to say).

Jason
 

Jason:

Thank you for the reply. My (lame) brainstorm was as follows:

Dependent upon depth, tow a fish fitted out with modified digital UV camera and strobe. As the fish moved above the bottom, the camera/strobe would take pics that could be fed back to a laptop. If the baseline concept worked, then (if possible) ratchet up a notch with an automated system.

At the time, I was thinking along the lines of the above being just one component of an overall search array. Even if one emerald was picked up (in the absence of ferrous targets), it might be worthwhile. I suppose the best scenario would be to have the fish follow the terrain and fool with wide angle lenses to get the best aspect.

But... none of it means a pile of beans if emeralds in general (rough and cut) don't fluoresce.

Thanks again Jason.

Starsplitter
 

None of this means a hill of beans if the emeralds are buried under 250+ years of sand, rocks, mud, or silt. To find anything with this would be nearly immpossible.

I think it is certainly a good solution to improving the technique for finding emeralds in dredge tailings. But just scouring the bottom, not likely!

Robert in SC
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

General Sherman Wreck off Little River Inlet, S.C.

⬅️ Previous Thread

A little more on QAR

Next Thread ➡️

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Steve's Detector Rods

Latest Discussions

Back
Top