Please help with I.D. of Aquamarine or Blue Topaz Cocktail ring

[coronasteve1]

Good Morning!

I hope this is the correct board for this type of question. The ring in the photos was my grandmother's. I remember her wearing it as early as the mid-1960's, although she could have had it much earlier than that. My grandfather was a cotton merchant and I know he travelled quite often to Brazil and Peru between 1940 to 1965. So based on a handwritten note that came with the ring which indicates the gemstone is Aquamarine, that's what I'm thinking. I guess it is possible that maybe it is Blue Topaz?

I have very carefully measured the stone with calipers and these dimensions as very close. On the girdle, Length:16.75mm Width: 14.5mm Depth: 9mm

The cut is Rectangular Faceted? Rectangular Stepped?

The photos were taken with a proper white balance under 5500k lights. The color is light blue with a minimal color cast towards aqua. Photos #2 & #3 are the best to indicate actual color.

What do I have here and any guesstimates on value? Should I lose the gold setting and sell the stone by itself?

[volemus]

It is some kind of step cut, yes rectangular to state the obvious. Looks like a custom setting. Color gives me a feeling more of aqua than treated topaz, but I don't know anything about old ways of color treatment. Take it to a pawn shop or jeweler and you can quickly put the question to rest, they'll likely do it for free. They can also tell you the metal purity while you're there.

[coronasteve1]

I went to a full service jewelry shop this morning to see if was worth the $85.00 written appraisal fee. The jeweler took a quick look with his loupe and calipered the stone. His response was definitely worth appraisal. They use +/- $2,000 as the threshold for recommending doing/not doing a proper appraisal. He said well worth the $2K, so appraisal makes sense If I am going to sell it. Will be interesting to see the particulars tomorrow when I get the written appraisal.

[volemus]

Be wary of trying to sell with the help of a store's own appraisal. Savvy enough buyers generally can make their own judgments, and appraisals by other than the more esteemed outfits (such as GIA, say) might be taken as ways to just take in a customer's money to give them something more like an insurance valuation. Food for thought.

[charmaffair_2009]

May I make a comment or two, this really takes me back. Late 60's to mid 70's very popular style. Made by using a wax pen to suite individual stones, an inexpensive way of doing it. Aqua I would think by the faint greenish tinge to the stone. It looks a really lovely item and would be worth to-day much more than what was paid at the time. Imagine that with some diamond content  wow. The claws have been done properly better than the usual craft jeweller would do. As you can see there is a slight twist to the claws shank that has been polished down to remove as much of this effect as possible. this is done to precious metal to strengthen the metal as it is twisted it hardens giving it the strength to cope with such long claws to grip well. 

I would have it reset into something you would wear for a wonderful keepsake. The style is dated, even though they are trying to bring it back. They were never in vogue for long. It as usual a very deep stone which can really only be a ring. The depth of course is to retail any colour. Aquamarines became very expensive to buy hence the beginning of the "Blur Topaz" trade. the first irradiated stones were as pale as this one but didn't have that feint hint of green in the colour which is hard to replicate. But, Aqua people didn't take kindly to the topaz as a replacement for their much loved stone. So Blue Topaz was then made available in ,many shades of blue to retain some market share, which they have retained to-day. I have a packet full of 3 MM in the pale shade which we used in production earrings and rings. Birthstone people still wanted the price to be very reasonable, but, it didn't work, so we just didn't mention them as a replacement for aqua. just sold them as what they were pale Topaz. 

You will see also from the 50's on wards the German wonderful synthetic stones, often set in marcasite or 14ct. But, once again minus that tiny hint of green, far to perfectly pale blue. Charm.

[coronasteve1]

Thank you Charm. I have the ring at a GIA certified Gemologist for written appraisal which I'll pick up tomorrow. Maybe we'll have some value here, who knows. It will be interesting to see if my estimate of ct weight is anywhere close to what the appraisal shows. I'm figuring 14.8 ct to 16.2 ct.