Jewelry

Fancy Yellow Diamond Ring, ca. 1950

Appraisal: Fancy Yellow Diamond Ring, ca. 1950

Transcript

GUEST: Well, we have here a ring that was originally purchased by my dad's boss for his first wife in the 1950s. Unfortunately, she passed away, and he gave it to his second wife. She chose to sell it and she offered my parents the ring. My dad misunderstood the price. And so when she came to deliver the ring and pick up the check, my mother had already written the check. And the lady said, "Well, you know, I'll go ahead and take that."

APPRAISER: So, your mom, you've told me, was very strong...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...independent...

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: ...businesswoman.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: And she wrote that check for how much?

GUEST: $15,000.

APPRAISER: Oh, a lot of money.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: Now, you said in the late '70s.

GUEST: It was supposed to be for $50,000. (laughs)

APPRAISER: Wow.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: Wow. Now, why is the diamond yellow? When it's being formed, high pressure and high heat by nature, nitrogen is incorporated into the crystalline structure. So it's the introduction of nitrogen which makes it yellow. Now, when we look at yellow diamonds, there's all different variations of yellow. Diamonds are in that grading zone when they're white from D to Z.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: So after Z, you get into what could be a faint yellow. And then it goes right down. It goes into fancy color, fancy light color. And the more saturated the color is, it could be fancy intense, it could be fancy vivid. To find that out, it needs eventually...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...to come out of the mounting and it needs to go to a lab to have it graded.

GUEST: Right. That's what we were told. We just didn't want to get it out of the original setting.

APPRAISER: It's a hard concept to, to embrace for sure.

GUEST: (laughing): Yes.

APPRAISER: The best I can tell in the mounting is, I would call it right now fancy yellow.

GUEST: Oh, I like that. (chuckles)

APPRAISER: You like that. I even suspect the diamond may be actually more yellow than we realize when you take it out. And another thing is, these stones normally are not round. So to find one that's round is a little more unusual. We graded the clarity. It's at least VS2. There's a good chance it may be VS1. We hit it with the U.V. light, there's no fluorescence, which is also a good thing. I took a gauge, and I measured the diameter of the diamond.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: Which is 12.8 millimeters. And then I measured the depth.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: Which is 7.8 millimeters. It comes up to 7.85 carats.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: But there is a good possibility that it's eight carats. The ring is made out of 14-karat yellow gold on the bottom and platinum on top. It was most likely manufactured in the 1950s. With the base being 14 karat, I would say that it was manufactured in the United States. Any thoughts of what you think it may be worth today?

GUEST: I know that the lady had mentioned at the time that she sold it to my mother, she was told it was worth about $80,000.

APPRAISER: That would have been a big retail price.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: If it's just under eight carats, this stone today is, easy, $80,000.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: I would say, at auction, $80,000 to $120,000.

GUEST: Wow. Of just the stone itself?

APPRAISER: Just the stone.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: Now, if it's over eight carats, all bets are off and the ring could be $100,000 to $150,000.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: And that's at auction.