Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2011 5:34 pm Posts: 13 Location: Sweden
Which are the best sites for buying gemstones online? Both rough and cut. I'm familiar with e-bay so if you people here have any favourite sellers, please share! I would highly appreciate it!
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
This is not a consumer's forum, sorry. The purpose of this site is to discuss gemology. Many of our members are cutters and have online venues. You can research some of the links. Good luck.
Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2011 5:34 pm Posts: 13 Location: Sweden
Ah.. i thought so. Well, all i wanted really was to find sellers that are trusted so i don't pay money for a piece of glass. Anyway feel free to remove this post
Hi Hedstrom Ebay is a good place to buy gemstones and I have found the dealers there to be reputable, they have to be to maintain a good sellers rating of 99% satisfaction or better. Last week I got a syn faceted qtz which turned out to be a syn sapphire & on telling the dealer there was no problem to get a replacement. For natural gems try http://www.gemselect.com & nat & syn http://www.thaisilvergems.com Syn gems & rough http://www.morioncompany.com http://www.gemresources.com or do a search on eBay for whatever you are interested in. Cheers Allano
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
Speaking as a professional gemologist who routinely identifies many gems purchased on eBay , I must say that I have seen gross misrepresentation frequently associated with eBay purchases.
Gross, fraudulent, misrepresentation.
Sidebar: Please remember this is not a consumer's forum. We share technical information, and leave buying and selling leads to other venues.
Speaking as a professional gemologist who routinely identifies many gems purchased on eBay , I must say that I have seen gross misrepresentation frequently associated with eBay purchases.
As an absolute beginner, I've been buying test stones off ebay to play with my handlens and refractometer. For my purposes, it doesn't matter if I get something that isn't as described, as this is just for my own education (and they're incredibly cheap!)
But, just in my searches of cheap gemstones, I've seen some quite obviously incorrectly labelled stones, I imagine it's just as bad on the higher end (more expensive) stones. Good luck~!
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:22 pm Posts: 1117 Location: Virginia
As a warning, when I clicked on the link to thaisilvergems.com - I got a warning that the site may be harmful to my computer. You may not want to use that link...
_________________ Soil is not dirt. http://hmmdesign.net
Speaking as a professional gemologist who routinely identifies many gems purchased on eBay , I must say that I have seen gross misrepresentation frequently associated with eBay purchases.
Gross, fraudulent, misrepresentation.
You're being charitable Barbra
Pete
_________________ Pete (AKA Ruffysdad) http://www.westerngem.com
Re comment by Empress: The warning for supposed dodgy websites by your computer is a useful one (could be default for any website from Thailand?) however, I frequently refer to thaisilvergems.com website for info and several times bought gems from them. I consider them reputable dealers.
These large dealers (the websites I have given) have to have trained gemologists on the pay roll for the company to operate buying and selling, plus designing the website. A buyer who is a trained gemologist can quickly tell whether the sales data is OK or suspect, or plain wrong. This is more likely to happen with individual sellers, rather than large dealers. The large dealers maintain their presence on eBay to get customers.
Therefore it is unhelpful (specially to beginners) to tar the whole EBay with the same brush, by declaring it prone to fraudulent practices when clearly it is not. Trust is what makes eBay work. I could remind readers that twice in the past few weeks I have read/seen posts about dodgy Gem Certificates issued by trained gemmologists, but we know this is a rare occurrence. So common sense is required. Also, when in doubt, don't! (buy, or whatever) Cheers Allano
Last edited by allanotaylor on Tue Jun 14, 2011 10:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:22 pm Posts: 1117 Location: Virginia
Allano,
I just tried their site again by typing it into my browser and did not get the warning - so who knows (not I) where the warning came from. Maybe my system doesn't like links to ebay?
_________________ Soil is not dirt. http://hmmdesign.net
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
allanotaylor wrote:
Therefore it is unhelpful (specially to beginners) to tar the whole EBay with the same brush, by declaring it prone to fraudulent practices when clearly it is not. Trust is what makes eBay work. Allano
With all due respect, I disagree. Certainly there are honest dealers on eBay. Certainly there are bargains to be had.
But unless one has the ability to determine what is legit and what is not, they are operating with a profound disadvantage. Blind trust is a fool's game.
Just do an eBay search for "blue quartz" or "alexandrite beads" or "padparadsha sapphire". I can't find an eBay seller of mystic topaz who indicates that it is a coated colorless product.
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
Well, there are currently 11,897 results found for mystic topaz on eBay. I haven't found any which describe a coating......admittedly, I have not checked all of them, just the first 100 or so. But, to beat a dead horse, your premise that the success of eBay depends on "trust" is naive.
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