Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-3123266-20140303175822/@comment-1616746-20150101044629

I think that Thanos gave Loki the Gem (whichever it is) in the Scepter because he thought Earth would be easy to defeat. We can see that when the Other speaks to him in the after credits scene. If Loki came back to Thanos carrying both Gems, he would've tried to kill Loki somehow and get both gems for himself. However, the Avengers ended up getting both gems, one ended up in Asgard and the other with HYDRA.

One thing that just popped into my mind, what was the Infinity Gauntlet we saw in Odin's Vault? The Tesseract wasn't on Asgard and neither were either the Aether, the Orb or the Gem in the Scepter. Maybe it was just a replica, but holding a replica next to the Eye of Agamotto and the Casket of Ancient Winters doesn't make sense to me.