Hi All, I have a jar full of very green colored rough Chrysophase? I
bought them at an estate sales.There is about 70 pieces.Is there a
formula to determine the caret weight and the value of these stones.
Thanks in advance for the help!
Marty
Hi Marty You are asking two questions. First the weight. The only
way to determine the Carat weight of your stones is to weigh them on
a scale. If you don’t have a carat scale available, you can weigh
them on a Gram scale, and multiply the result by 5, as a carat is
1/5th of a gram. If you have a scale that weighs in troy ounces,
you can get the carat weight by multiplying the Toz weight by
155.5174. If you have a scale that measures in Ounce av, you can
multiply the weight by 141.7476. In any case, you will need a scale
to determine the weight.
Your second question is what is the value of the stones. That is a
lot like asking what it would cost to buy a car. Do you want the
Mercedes G class that I just fell in love with until I found it
would cost me around $80,000, or do you want the old Jeep Wagoner
that the Mercedes looks like for say $8,000 in very top shape, or in
really rough shape for $800. The point here is that there is a very
wide range of prices for Chryophrase. You could expect to sell
(this is what it would be worth to you) it for say $0.25 a pound for
common material up to around $30.00 a pound for the better grade
material. To determine which you have, you have a lot of homework
to do. You need to do come comparison shopping. Go to different
rock shops that have Chryophrase and see what they are asking, and
how the quality of their material compares to what you have. Here,
you need to be very objective. You need to understand what makes
one batch of Chryophrase more desirable, and worth more, than the
next. You can’t allow yourself to “feel” that yours is better, or
worse that the shops. You really need to know why it is better, or
worse. You have some work to do.
Don
Is there some reason that you cannot just weigh the stones? There
are inexpensive carat scales available. If you have access to some
other ACCURATE scale, 1 carat = .20 gram, and there are 31.1 grams
in a troy ounce.
For gem weight estimation, there is no better book that I am aware
of than Charles Carmona’s “The Complete Handbook for Gemstone Weight
Estimation.”
disclaimer…Charlie is a friend, and I am named in his
acknowledgements. ( But I don’t get any $$ from that)
The book is available online at www.guildlabs/gemania.
David Barzilay, Lord of the Rings