Smart Shopping School

Green Beryl vs Emerald: The Color “Emerald has many special qualities, but colored stone professionals generally agree that emeralds are, most of all, about color. Emerald has been the standard for green among colored stones for thousands of years”, as the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) puts it. Indeed, the subject matter of “green beryl vs emerald” is all about color. And about value, of course. Emeralds are praised for their green color, whereas green beryls lack this crucial component. Both, emerald…

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Recently I came across an auction website called Auctionet (auctionet.com). The abundance of lead glass-filled rubies (composite rubies) at this auction website grabbed my attention immediately. So, I decided to dig a bit deeper. One of the first things I noticed was that all these composite rubies are heavily overvalued by the experts. As discussed in the post about lead glass-filled rubies, their actual price is around $2 per carat only. Here their estimates range from EUR 30 to EUR 134…

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Over the past few years, I have noticed that vintage jewelry has become extremely popular amongst buyers. It is not to say that it was not popular before, but I noticed this trend relatively recently. I was somewhat surprised to discover that vintage jewelry is so popular that the buyers are ready to pay more (sometimes even substantially more) for an article of vintage jewelry than for an alike article of contemporary jewelry on many occasions. That seemed somewhat illogical,…

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