Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/21/utility-company-asks-for-proof.html
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“In an effort to verify the claim, PG&E has requested proof of ownership such as photos of the emerald, or receipts for security precautions such as temperature control or employment of security personnel.”
The emerald is real, but nobody gets to see it! Nobody! Now quit asking so many questions, hand over the money and scram!
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Part of me is like “reasonable”.
The other part is like "yeah, the photos are on my computer, and the receipts are in the safe, but, oh yeah, they were both in my house THAT YOU BURNED DOWN.
(I have no doubt there was an emerald. I doubt the valuation. I also don’t really doubt that they and their lawyers have some kind of explanation for their valuation; or someone messed up and added too many zeros or something.)
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No homeowners insurance policy that lists the emerald? No separate policy for the emerald? Surely these would help establish ownership.
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My wife’s custom engagement ring (platinum design with about a 1ct stone valued at ~$4000) fell off of her finger at some point during a beach vacation after 10 years.
We had renter’s insurance with a rider on it for the ring, and the insurance company tried to replace it with a “1ct platinum diamond ring” which you can get a your local mall shop for ~$2000. They were actually going to pick one out and send it to me.
I complained, showed them the policy, showed them the receipt, and finally they relented and we went back to the same artist to make a replacement.
$280 mill? You better have some pretty good documentation if you even think you’re going to see a fraction of that.
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The Emerald City was never the same, again…
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Step one of a successful fraudulent claim is to make your claim believable.
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For PG&E’s sake…I hope it’s real and they find the documentation.
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Proof of temperature control? This isn’t a fragile painting - I doubt most climate controls would have a setting for 1800F. Maybe a water hose pointed directly on it? Also - did they want an armed guard just hanging out in these people’s home?
My guess is that they got this thing in a somewhat shady way for WAY less than they are asking for. Just because this thing is huge and rare - doesn’t mean there is a market demand that high for it. It’s kind of ugly. But you can’t multiply the cost of a very nice small emerald and just multiply it by the weight of this monstrosity. I’m guessing this was the only way they could unload it since there would be limited buyers. Maybe a natural history museum.
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surely any reputable insurance company would require this to be independently verified before they would even think about covering this, let alone paying out on it. My insurance won’t even let me add cover for a few measly collectibles worth around $100 without full documentation and proof of value from one of their approved appraisers
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I for one was looking forward to seeing it on Antiques Roadshow.
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I have extra insurance on some items in my home, and the photos and serial numbers etc are on file with my insurance company. It’s hard to believe they had something that valuable that didn’t have extra insurance on it. Unless they like to live dangerously.
I would think there would still be remnants of the emerald. I mean these things are forged in the crust of the earth with intense heat and pressure. Like you can technically burn diamond if in an oxygen rich enough atmosphere, but I would think even if this sample was destroyed, you would have parts of it remaining.
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Oh no, my Picasso was lost in the fire too!
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You would think a gemstone that valuable is in some kind of safe. One which probably could withstand a fire without melting.
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Well the safe maybe, the contents maybe too. They are rated for heat and time, but it depends on those two factors and the kind of safe.
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It takes heat of about 1400 degrees to affect the physical properties of an emerald. But I am thinking if it is in a safe, it can be located more easily and dug up along with the debris of the house.
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There should still be records from an auction house, from an evaluator, and a paper trail all the way back to wherever it was mined. The lack of those things would indicate the emerald never existed.
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I am reminded of the gem in Bruce Sterling’s short story “Spider Rose”:
It has been the find of a lifetime. It had started existence as part of a glacier-like ice moon of the protoplanet Uranus, shattering, melting, and recrystallizing in the primeval eons of relentless bombardment. It had cracked at least four different times, and each time mineral flows had been forced within its fracture zones under tremendous pressure: carbon, manganese silicate, beryllium, aluminum oxide. When the moon was finally broken up into the famous Ring complex, the massive ice chunk had floated for eons, awash in shock waves of hard radiation, accumulating and losing charge in the bizarre electromagnetic flickerings typical of all Ring formations.
And then one crucial moment some millions of years ago it had been ground-zero for a titanic lightning flash, one of those soundless invisible gouts of electric energy, dissipating charges built up over whole decades. Most of the ice-chunk’s outer envelope had flashed off at once as a plasma. The rest was… changed. Mineral occlusions were now strings and veins of beryl, shading here and there into lumps of raw emerald big as Investors’ heads, crisscrossed with nets of red corundum and purple garnet. There were lumps of fused diamond, weirdly colored blazing diamond that came only from the strange quantum states of metallic carbon. Even the ice itself had changed into something rich and unique and therefore by definition precious.
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I’m wondering how much insurance would cost for a supposed $280 million emerald annually? And what the conditions of the insurance would be in terms of security? Can we just type that into Lemonade and get a quote? 
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