|
|
 |
|
|
 |
"The stone's sparkling light danced before my eyes."
of TheColumnists.com
The light glittered from the darkness within the safety deposit box. The glow flashed from a diamond--my mother's engagement ring given to her in the 1920s. Now it would fill a 21st century need.
I was looking for a way to cover an unexpected tax bill. Officials in Nassau County, where I have lived since 1965, had reassessed property and sent shock waves through thousands of Long Island homes. My taxes soared 50 per cent. That was a year ago. This year, they rose another 25 per cent. It left me--10 years into retirement-- trying to figure how I could pay the bill.
The ring. That was the answer The stone's sparkling light danced before my eyes. My Mother had given it to Sara 47 years ago when we got married. It had graced Sara's hand whenever we went out on special occasions. But as the years rolled by, she had worn it less and less. Finally, it found its way into our bank's safe deposit box. And there it had stayed, unworn and forgotten for decades.
Sara had her own engagement ring. Would she mind very much if I sold my Mother's? She was silent for a moment. Then, she said she would not. And so began a search to determine its worth.
I took the ring to a dealer whose ad said he specialized in antique jewelry. His store looked like it was something transported from a Baghdad bazaar. He looked like a seasoned trader ready to fleece a willing sucker.
The jeweler put on a magnifying glass, called a loupe, and said the stone had a European cut, a hand-worked style popular at the turn of the last century. Some say these diamonds have a beauty and personality all their own. But they do not reflect light as brilliantly as modern cut diamonds. The jeweler said he would probably have to recut the stone--and thus reduce its size--before selling it.
He estimated the diamond at 1.6 carats. He wanted to take the stone out of the setting so he could weigh it. "Contrary to popular opinion," he said, "carats are determined by weight, not size."
Carat measurement is critical, I would later learn, because the larger the diamond, the rarer it is. Its value increases geometrically as the carat weight increases. For example, if a one-carat diamond is worth $4,000, a two-carat diamond of the same quality would be worth not twice the price (or $8,000) but three times the price (or $12,000) or more.
I said the ring was so old that he might break the prongs. He looked at it and made an offer in four figures. I wanted to see what someone else would say and thanked him. He asked to see the ring again and raised his offer by 50 per cent. I still said, "No."
His wife followed me to my car and asked me to reconsider. I thanked her and left.
The second dealer came to my home. He said he liked the ring but when I told him I intended to take it to a third jeweler before making a decision, he declined to make an offer. He said he wanted to be the last to make an offer so he would have the chance to top the high bid.
The third dealer also came to my house and estimated the diamond at two carats. In addition to carat weight, he explained, there were three other "c's" that were factors in a diamond's worth: its color, clarity, and cut. I was beginning to appreciate the intricacies of evaluating and know that it was way beyond my limited knowledge.
There were labs, I would find out, that neither bought nor sold diamonds, but existed only to grade their characteristics. Their appraisal gave sellers an objective report to show buyers.
Dealer number three gave a low-ball offer, which he later raised by about 50 per cent after I rejected it. He ended up in the same neighborhood as dealer number one. But when I said I’d have to think it over, he said that was "today's price." He would not guarantee he would make the same offer next week. I said I'd take my chances.
I never got to meet the fourth dealer. He said he would be wasting his time just to give me an offer. I would have to agree to accept his offer if it was a reasonable one. He wanted me to write down a figure I would accept on a piece of paper. He would write his offer on another. If his offer matched my figure or exceeded it, it would be a sale. I declined.
The final offer came at the posh store of a respected jeweler in an upscale Long Island community. He had an assistant clean my ring, instructing me to go with her (so I would know the diamond had not been switched). He estimated the diamond at 2.4 carats but gave the lowest price of all.
When I declined, he offered to raise his price by $1,000 if I left it on consignment and he sold it. He said this was the prime season for diamond sales-- between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
All this left me puzzled. Did I really find the true value of this stone? The more I went into it, the less I seemed to know.
As I was mulling all this over, Sara and I went to a party at our son's law firm in lower Manhattan. She wore an elegant black princess-style dress with white piping and my mother's engagement ring.
It sparkled on her fingers as she drank from a long-stemmed glass and reflected the light from a chandelier as she shook hands with people. And as we walked past a four-piece combo, I put my arms around her and we started dancing. And I remembered when we met when I was in the Navy and she was teaching school in Norfolk. Her hair had turned from blonde to gray but her eyes retained their intense blue color.
Now, time stood still and for an instant everyone disappeared and it was just Sara and me and her lovely glittering ring. It had been in my family for the better part of a century.
And I knew then that I
would never sell that ring.
©2003 by David Zinman. The Zinman caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel.
You
can comment on this column online. Please address your message
to either "The Editors" or David Zinman. To send an
email, click here: talkback@thecolumnists.com
| Home | About Us | Archives | Talkback | Shopping Mall |