Chapter 4a: Just What Did I Have?

I was curious as to just how much value in pretty stones I had sitting in my pocket. I looked up the old jeweler that had done the certification on the briefcase's worth of gemstones. It was simple to make an appointment for a further appraisal.

I took an air-taxi to Essex County Airport. I took a limo onto 80 West, 280 East and then in-city to Newark where he had his office. We started off with a ten percent charge for his valuation services. When I told him that I had on the order of a hundred carats in large stones he cut that to three percent. Now we were in business.

His eyes bulged when I started pulling envelopes out of the top pockets of my field jacket. I grinned. "There's no better security than anonymity." I said.

He tried to look professional but I could see his pulse beginning to pound as he emptied the envelopes, one by one, onto velvet trays. He sat looking at them with a smile on his face.

"I shall remember this day for a while, I think."

He made a series of notations in his journal, checked each envelope for what was written on it and made further notes. He pulled around a binocular microscope on a rolling stand and began examining the stones, one by one. I could see him write, turn a stone, write, turn a stone and write some more. I sat back and watched as he processed all the diamonds. Finally he exhaled, relaxed and sat back in his chair.

With a smile at me he said, "Young man, you have a fascinating collection of stones here."

I asked "First, are they all diamonds?"

He nodded and said, "Oh yes, there is no question that they are diamonds."

"Here," He pointed to a dark red specimen cut into a faceted sphere. "This deep red stone has been cut to imitate a ruby. A fine job. A fine job." Next he pushed at a deep green stone with an emerald cut. It had a long, wide top face yet had edge and side facets too.

"This stone has undergone long-term radiation exposure to obtain this marvelous color. Beautiful!" Next he pushed four stones together in a group. "Now these, these are amazing. These stones are color matched to look like orange citrines. My god, the necklace I could make out of these with a pierced platinum mount!"

He gestured at the rest of the tray.

"The rest are fine stones in their own right yet pale in comparison to these special ones. The smallest stone here weighs just less than thirty-two carats. They all are impeccably cut in the modern form. Each one has a registration number laser-cut into the stone. If you wish I shall register them in your name so that they cannot be presumed to be stolen if found in your possession."

I agreed. He typed up a memo with my name and SSN, and then the numbers from each stone.

"There."

"Now, as to valuation. I will not try to mess about with auction values or retail values which you would have no hope of recovering. Instead I shall give you the commercial, wholesale values."

He turned the page in his journal and started writing. Soon he had a list which he totaled, used his calculator to get a further value and wrote it down as well. He ripped out the sheet and laid it before me. He used his pen to point to each line as he talked.

"The ruby stone, two million. The emerald green stone, one million. For the four citrine-colored stones as a group: five million. Each of the other white diamonds I estimate to be worth four hundred to five hundred thousand each. These values will vary with the market but on a good day this is what you would get. Take note, if you decided to dump them all at once you would not get anything like these prices as their impact would temporarily yet severely depress the market. Selling them piecemeal through a big international auction house that is known for selling antique jewelry and individual stones (such as Christie's), would probably get you prices over and above what I have listed."

I wrote him a check for his services, for $312,000.00 for his services and slid it over to him. He accepted it with a smile and a little bob of his head.

"Now, for a bit of advice, young man, and freely given. Do not flaunt them. Do not display them. Many people would kill for but one of them. Hide them 'in plain sight', within something innocuous. Design a mechanism to check on them without appearing obvious. That would be safest." We shook hands and parted, him to a well-deserved cup of tea and me to the airport.