Wow! What happened to the last two weeks. They’ve slipped away from me in a blink of an eye. I’ve been wanting to share my favorite jewelry story from my trip to Greece and Turkey.
Continuing where we left off after the dyed lapis incident, we were still on the hunt for a nice gemstone for Bob and Kathy. On our last night in Athens, they asked me to take a look at a pendant they spotted at one of the stores in the Plaka shopping area at the foot of the Acropolis.
I saw a beautiful blue topaz pendant for $450 US. The sales person shared with me that the mounting was 18k gold…it had that 18k gold look, so that was believable. Bob and Kathy were less concerned about the gold but rather about the stone. I explained to them that blue topaz is a relatively inexpensive stone, so they were actually paying for the gold in this case. They wanted to know what I thought of the quality of the blue topaz. Armed with my loupe, I asked the salesperson if I could inspect the piece.
The stone was a nice cross checkerboard oval…13 carats according to the salesman. It was clean with good color…but upon turning the piece over, I noticed the inconspicuous .925 stamp on the inside of the pendant. I could feel the blood boil under my skin. For those who are not familiar, .925 indicates the piece is made of sterling silver. This was clearly gold plating over sterling silver made to look like 18k gold. The pendant was worth about $200 at the most.
I flashed a look at the salesperson behind the counter and said, this is not 18k gold, it’s got a .925 sterling silver stamp in it. It’s clearly gold plated silver. Busted on the spot, the salesperson started flipping through some paperwork acting as if this was a surprise to him as well. He finally admitted that yes, it was indeed gold plated silver. Ok, so perhaps he wasn’t aware of this…I could give him the benefit of the doubt, however, the piece was still marked at $450…so it seemed clear to me that there was an intent to deceive…after all, how many tourists carry a loupe! 
This was the final straw for Bob and Kathy. They gave up their search for bigger and better gemstones and went home with their initial purchase of one small lapis and one small topaz.
Author: Michelle M. Rahm is a GIA-trained Graduate Gemologist and is President of Colorado’s Mile High Chapter of the GIA Alumni Association. She has been selling gemstones and jewelry online since 1997. Visit her websites JewelryImpressions.com and OurCustomWeddingRings.com
Ice seems an appropriate slang term for diamonds…not only because a gorgeous colorless diamond can be as clear as ice, but also because they can be cold as ice. 
When I think of raw 24k gold, I think of panning for gold and getting tiny nuggets or gold flakes…like the flakes you see at the bottom of the little glass water bottles sold in souvenir shops. I can’t imagine the elation of finding a nugget like this!
This photo looks a little bit like a dead goldfish, but it’s actually an interesting piece of solid 24k gold. The bars you see are actually gold crystals. Because the crystals are in tact, this 4.8 ounce piece of gold is actually worth over $100,000.
I was so fortunate to be able to attend the Corundum Treatments & Pricing Workshop in Denver on Monday, March 12, 2012. This extremely valuable workshop was lead by Dr. Cigdem Lule, FGA, GG & Richard Drucker, GG, President, 
