Buying and selling Oregon sunstone can be difficult. The beauty and diversity of this gem make it hard for people to describe and price accurately. In my research, I’ve looked for commonalities and averages in order to best describe and price individual gems. I hope this article will serve as a visual and descriptive reference for grading and pricing Oregon sunstone.

Oregon Sunstone Buying: General Advice

Multiple factors must be considered when pricing any gemstone, not the least of which are cut and overall beauty. This represents a real limitation to online pricing research. Unfortunately, most websites don’t list cut quality as part of their grading criteria in their descriptions. The price guidelines outlined below are primarily based on pricing by reputable dealers who have physical points of retail. (Web-based pricing was only used in instances where there was not enough data available otherwise. eBay was used as a last resort).

Beware of buying Oregon sunstones online. This gemstone is notoriously hard to photograph because of its strong pleochroism (its display of two or three distinct colors when viewed from different angles). Dealers often price their inventory based on beauty. Of course, beauty can be quite subjective and emotional. In…