Posted on 12/28/2008 11:06:17 AM PST by xcamel
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department says it is holding an emerald estimated to be worth as much as $370 million while the stone's owner is determined.
A department spokesman said the 850-pound gem will be in safekeeping until a federal judge determines who rightfully owns it.
The "Bahia Emerald" was reported stolen in September from a secured vault in South El Monte, Calif.
CNN reported the emerald has been at the center of a dispute between a California man who claimed ownership, a company with which he contracted to sell it and a potential buyer.
It is alleged the gemstone's owner tried to go around the broker, who received a $19 million offer, and sell the emerald to the same buyer for $75 million.
The Brazilian stone was located in a Las Vegas warehouse, where the person in possession claimed to be the rightful owner, Los Angeles Sheriff's Lt. Thomas Grubb said.
A federal judge ordered the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to hold the 180,000-carat emerald until he can sort out the legal issues, Grubb said.
Similar to:
That is one BIG emerald!
Might be worth more ground up and made into an acre of sandpaper.
/johnny
OK! They had an offer of nineteen million, tried to sell it for seventy-five million but it’s worth three hundred and seventy million? I guess I’m not up on gem marketing.
Thank you - pictures of that stone are very hard to come by....
Holy Moses!
180 000 carats = 79.3664144 pounds
Ice melts in evidence rooms all the time !
The bozo reporter or cop who went to a california school
can’t get it straight. Gem is about 79.37 pounds.
1 carat = .0070548 oz.
Believe it or not but a millennium ago emeralds were ground up as a paint pigment.
Yeah, the total weight of the substrate and crystals is 850 lbs.
The reporter is a moron.
I bet there is a tax angle here also....I am sure sales or whatever tax that applies to gems was never paid...
"I agree with the poster who found this story implausible. There are good quality roads, etc. in Bahia. As for the estimate of 180,000 carats. B***shit. It appears that much of the 850 lbs is just matrix holding the emeralds together - not uncommon. By result of their chemical composition and ultimate formation, "flawless" (as often related to daimonds) is impossible in emeralds.
Until the matrix is washed off and every single crystal examined and graded, there is no way to estimate the value. Like all commodoties, emeralds are subject to market forces of supply and demand. That is one reason that deBeers tries so hard to stop the sales of so-called synthetic diamonds (produced in the lab - are just as real as those in nature).
As soon as diamonds (or emeralds) were to become 'pedestrian', the cartels that control production would not longer be able to control pricing. Same is true of oil...anything else one wants to consider. all in all, this story is just that...a big story filled with media savvy embellishment."
—sounds about like media estimates of numbers of people at left-wing marches in Washington, DC—
Los Angeles County Sheriff?
OK, the owner had better show up quick or the gem will be lost for good.
Wow
Definitely something fishy. Either this story is all screwed up, and the reporter is a moron, or there's something fishy. Maybe someone stole it. Maybe someone smuggled it into the country and was trying to sell it without declaring it or paying taxes. Maybe the intermediary was a professional fence. You might settle for a quarter of the value or less if you had to work under the table.
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