Get your gems back in D3 without using your jeweler, Covetous Shen
Hopefully you are gemming your equipment, and hopefully you also get upgrades to that gear once in a while. When you move up in gem size, getting your gems back can be quite costly if you use Covetous Shen. And at the present time in Diablo 3, every little penny counts, so you can upgrade your gear using the auction house. However, there is a “trick” to getting your gems back without using Covetous Shen.
Use your Blacksmith to get your gems back
That’s right. Use your blacksmith to salvage the item and you get the gem in your inventory. Easy as that. Of course, this does mean you can’t sell the item, but since you won’t be doing this to all your drops, it won’t make that big of difference.
Damn that’s crafty! Never knew that was possible. So yeah, if you are planning to vendor that item anyway, you might as well salvage it and recover the gem.
You have a wonderful site, and thanks for all the little bits of info you put in your post, well done!
If you have extra shared stashes then there is a big which causes “vendored” gem from gear to go to your last shared stash tab instead of your inventory.
Just in case this happens to you!