The Emerald Ring Story

2000

A True Story

Written 4/2013* 961 Words

By Howard Yasgar

It was a Sunday morning in June of 2000.

We were having a cup of coffee, when my wife noticed a large ad in the Miami Herald announcing a confiscated drug dealer’s jewelry auction, it was to be held that morning at a hotel in Coral Gables.

I knew that most of the drug dealer jewelry auctions were phony.

They always stated that they were auctioning off jewelry confiscated from drug dealers, but in the fine print they have a disclaimer stating the jewelry may come from other sources which of course is where it all really comes from.

Knowing all of that didn’t mean that a jewelry auction couldn’t be entertaining, and it also didn’t mean you couldn’t find a bargain providing you knew what you were looking for.

All someone needed to remember, is that the people running the jewelry auctions aren’t doing it for fun, they are doing it as a business to make money, and you may be sure they have ways of ensuring that they will always make lots of money.

One of the oldest methods that is still used, is by planting a “Ringer” or a “Shill” in the audience.

The shill’s job is to raise their hand to get the bidding prices to go higher, doing it, while making sure that no one in the audience knows who they are.

So, even after knowing that the odds were against us, we decided to attend the auction anyway.

All my life I have been interested in gemology and precious and semi-precious stones, so by now I was somewhat knowledgeable regarding several popular precious gems, one of them being emeralds.

I can pretty much recognize fake emeralds and all the different shades of real emeralds and I could tell the countries they came from.

Over the years, I have looked at so many Emeralds, I now have a pretty good idea of which are the best colored ones were and their value.

We arrived at the auction at 10 AM sharp, we were about an hour early.

There were already six or seven long glass jewelry display cases set up as well as about a hundred folding metal chairs.

I could see in the glass cases they had several hundred pieces of jewelry for everyone to look at.

As we looked at the jewelry, I was extremely surprised at how few people had shown up.

The system the auction Company use, was simple, you looked at all the jewelry, and if you liked an item they put a small piece of colored paper next to it, which ensured that the auctioneer would put that item up for sale for you.

As we looked at all the jewelry I also studied the people in the room. I was trying to determine who the shill was, because I knew there had to be one.

There was one extremely well-dressed gentleman with silver hair who appeared to be in his late sixties.

He had on an expensive looking white dress shirt, neatly creased slacks, and top of the line loafers, and he wasn’t wearing stockings.

I was dead sure it was him, he was certainly the shill, and he was also quite possibly the owner of the auction company.

As we continued looking over the jewelry, I called my wife over to look at their selection of emeralds, I wanted to point out all the nice ones to her.

If she liked one, perhaps I would have some fun and bid on it.

I was surprised to see that sitting there was a large seven carat Colombian emerald ring.

The emerald had excellent color, and it had a ring of small diamonds all around the large emerald cut stone.

It was a beautiful ring, but I wondered who needed a big seven carat Emerald ring, it was way too big for my wife.

I said to my wife, in a jewelry store, the Emerald ring would probably retail for over $25,000.00.

That’s when I noticed someone had already put a small piece of colored paper next to the ring, which meant somebody in the room already wanted the auctioneer to offer it.

As it got close to auction time, we all sat down several rows back from the front row, and I watched as the silver haired gentleman sat down in a rear row, exactly where a shill would sit.

There were now several people sitting, in the audience, and a young lady came by with glasses of champagne.

I pointed out to my wife how this auctioneer knew how to soften his customers up.

Once the auction started, a few of the jewelry items sold quickly for high prices, however several items the auctioneer held up received no bids from anyone in the audience.

Then suddenly, I saw that the auctioneer was holding up the big seven carat emerald ring.

The auctioneer said, “Do I hear $25,000.00”, there was just silence.

“Do I hear $20,000.00”, again there was silence.

He kept reducing the price down to $15,000.00, then $10,000.00 and $5,000.00, until the auctioneer finally said, “Do I hear $2,500.00”?

I just knew that if I bid $2500.00, the shill, who I was sure was sitting in the back was going to jack the price up.

But for some reason that didn’t happen, as I raised my hand and I bought that beautiful seven carat emerald and diamond ring for a bargain price of $2,500.00.

I knew something was wrong, the price I paid was way too cheap.

I turned to the back row to look for the shill, because I knew that he hadn’t done his job properly, but he wasn’t there, whoever that silver haired guy was, he wasn’t a shill, and he had left.

It was several months later when we were browsing in a Key West jewelry store, and to my surprise they had an almost identical seven carat Columbian emerald and diamond ring on display, it was in a glass case mounted on a pedestal like it was in a museum.

The asking price was $25,000.00.

I now take back everything I ever said that was bad about phony jewelry auctions.