"...and the Dwarves delved too greedily and too deep..."

Oh yeah, baby. Death from above on eBay again. Swooped in and beat out 7 other bidders. A *19.29* carat champagne topaz. They're calling it Imperial topaz, but for that it needs to be more golden/orange color. Don't care, I like the toasty chocolate brown color. It will someday become a pendant. I'm going to wait and see if the price of gold comes down a little (I want just a plain white gold basket mount). And, more importantly, I need to find a decent jeweler that doesn't treat me like I'm an idiot or chip my stones.

Next on the list: a brown zircon from the same seller (combined shipping costs, woohoo!!). Since the likelihood of me getting my hands on a cognac/chocolate solitaire diamond for a pendant are fairly slim (more $ than I care to drop), I'll get other, less expensive stones. Zircons (not to be at all confused with cubic zirconia, the fake man-made diamond simulant) have a high refractive index, so have plenty of fire and sparkle (like a diamond).