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Jul. 10th, 2013 05:24 pmGemstone Adventur!
So, I went down to Jeweler's Row this evening and had a gem appraiser look at the stuff Mum sent home with me from Mama Tickey's collection. It was really awkward. The first woman I spoke with summoned a second woman who, well, understood English better, and she looked at the stones I had in their little plastic bags, but she wasn't actually qualified, I guess? So she summoned another woman who started clucking her tongue before I even had the gems fully out.
I managed to get across that I didn't want anything official, just wanted to know what the heck they were, and there was this weird moment where I realised that they weren't going to touch the bags or take the stones out of them. At first I thought maybe they were just observing good germ protocol, not touching strange stuff they didn't have to, but it occurred to me as I unbagged the stones and set them out that maybe they didn't want their hands busy while mine were free.
It's been a long time since I've had the "scruff treatment" -- I used to get it a lot when I was a scruffy theatre kid, any time I was in a reasonably high-end establishment where I was a bit out of place. I had the distinct sense, however, that combining my business-casual, my tidy but epically bad haircut at the moment, and my obvious lack of interest in buying anything --
I think they might have thought I was trying to con them. Which does bring a little bubble of Neal Caffrey joy to an otherwise perplexing experience, so don't try to dissuade me.
The upshot is that the woman who looked at the stones once I got them loose didn't look very closely before she said they were semiprecious, not gems, and dismissed me with a wave of her hand. Which does not, I have to say, incite confidence in me that she actually knew. It's disappointing to think I have a handful of stuff I could buy from a street vendor, but I can live with that -- it's not like I paid for it -- as long as I'm confident someone who knows what they're doing and isn't waiting for me to snatch a diamond has had a good look.
So, I think I'll call my insurance guy tomorrow and see if he knows an appraiser who will take me a little more seriously. And hell, even if the blue one isn't a sapphire, it's beautiful; I might have it set in something anyway. Who's gonna know? Aside from snobby jewelers...
So, I went down to Jeweler's Row this evening and had a gem appraiser look at the stuff Mum sent home with me from Mama Tickey's collection. It was really awkward. The first woman I spoke with summoned a second woman who, well, understood English better, and she looked at the stones I had in their little plastic bags, but she wasn't actually qualified, I guess? So she summoned another woman who started clucking her tongue before I even had the gems fully out.
I managed to get across that I didn't want anything official, just wanted to know what the heck they were, and there was this weird moment where I realised that they weren't going to touch the bags or take the stones out of them. At first I thought maybe they were just observing good germ protocol, not touching strange stuff they didn't have to, but it occurred to me as I unbagged the stones and set them out that maybe they didn't want their hands busy while mine were free.
It's been a long time since I've had the "scruff treatment" -- I used to get it a lot when I was a scruffy theatre kid, any time I was in a reasonably high-end establishment where I was a bit out of place. I had the distinct sense, however, that combining my business-casual, my tidy but epically bad haircut at the moment, and my obvious lack of interest in buying anything --
I think they might have thought I was trying to con them. Which does bring a little bubble of Neal Caffrey joy to an otherwise perplexing experience, so don't try to dissuade me.
The upshot is that the woman who looked at the stones once I got them loose didn't look very closely before she said they were semiprecious, not gems, and dismissed me with a wave of her hand. Which does not, I have to say, incite confidence in me that she actually knew. It's disappointing to think I have a handful of stuff I could buy from a street vendor, but I can live with that -- it's not like I paid for it -- as long as I'm confident someone who knows what they're doing and isn't waiting for me to snatch a diamond has had a good look.
So, I think I'll call my insurance guy tomorrow and see if he knows an appraiser who will take me a little more seriously. And hell, even if the blue one isn't a sapphire, it's beautiful; I might have it set in something anyway. Who's gonna know? Aside from snobby jewelers...
