Emerald, Sapphire Found In Fish Tank

Another one of those "here's a plot for a story" articles.

Emerald, Sapphire Found In Fish Tank
Gemologist Estimates Stones To Be Decades Old

DETROIT -- Hundreds of thousands of dollars in precious stones may have been found in a fish tank that was being stored in a Detroit auction warehouse.

Gemologist Derek Wilson said Detroit police called him to the warehouse to help identify the stones that were uncovered.

Watch: 'Priceless' Emerald, Sapphire Found In Fish Tank

"We started looking through it and it was just full of faceted and unfaceted gems," he said.

Catching Wilson's eye were two emeralds and a sapphire, which he said could be more than 100 years old and worth more than $100,000 collectively. He said he has no idea why the precious stones would have been in the fish tank.

"We have no idea. We've been trying to figure that out all day," Wilson said. "We don't know if it was somebody trying to hide money, or maybe somebody bought it that way, or maybe somebody had precious stones that they thought they would try to hide somewhere."

One of the emeralds is 840 karats.

"I have nothing to compare this to, as far as doing an appraisal as a gemologist," Wilson said of the huge emerald. "I can't say, 'Well, one in the past has sold for this price.' So, we actually can't put a value on this stone. It's priceless.

Wilson said he wants to find the owner to trace the history of the stones.

With the exception of the large emerald, the other stones were set to be auctioned off Saturday.