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For years, I found his statement fairly correct, though I did see fairly ugly stones fetching quite high prices, and some very soft stones sneaked into this group of valuable gems as if they were as hard as diamonds.

Over the years I had met spinels. I don’t know why, but, like most gem dealers, never thought anything much of them, perhaps because I always remembered the story about the beautiful Black Prince Ruby in the Queen of England’s jewelry that turned out to be a “simple spinel.”

In the last few years, especially after close encounters with spinels in Mahenge, Tanzania, I have been totally enchanted by them. Their color ranges from magnificent reds to deep pinks, to padparadcha colors and violets and mauves and blues. Most are as beautiful as the thousands of fancy sapphires that I have cut in my career and some were far nicer and more sparkling. They are also quite hard, 8 on Mohs scale. They are as rare as sapphires, and they have one thing that I adore – they are natural, unheated, and untreated in any way.



I was sure that the whole world would see eye to eye with me. After all, the people that bought and made jewelry out of them loved the gems. But, to my dismay, when I mentioned the name spinel, most of my American customers, acted strangely and repeating the name, “ah, spinel you say” as if I was talking about citrine or smoky quartz (not that I mean any disrespect to them). Somehow, to my American friends’ taste, this very rare, hard, and beautiful stone sounded as if it was an imitation, but an imitation of what? Of rubies and sapphires that were mostly treated so intensively that the relationship between their original color and treated color is non-existent?



Why is it that with all the fuss we make about treated stones, right in front of our very eyes there is an absolutely magnificent gem in very popular colors and most are ignoring it?

And then it hit me. There’s some kind of racism in gemstones. What could be the reason that this magnificent Black Prince Ruby that was found to be spinel – a very rare stone indeed – would be considered less important and less valuable unless there is some kind of gem racism. After all, they can’t even bring themselves to call it the Black Prince Spinel as if in order to be a prince you have to be a ruby!

But maybe the future is bright for spinel. After all, the only stone that my daughter agreed to wear in a necklace is a magnificent pink spinel. She says, “it’s something else!”

Copyright IDEX Magazine 2006, all rights reserved.]]> http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-051243 No Author Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:12:43 GMT http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071022-051243 http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-045608
Snoring and amethyst

After all these months of reading the Gemewizard column, I thought it was about time that you heard the truth behind the Gemewizard. I suppose that after 30 something years of living with the infamous Wizard, I am qualified to tell you a little of the secrets of the trade.





Having read quite a lot about the quality and powers of gems, I became a true believer in their abilities. On one of my visits to a small mineral and crystal shop in Tel Aviv, I was very excited to learn that amethyst, if put under the pillow of a snoring partner, will have a soothing affect on the culprit and reduce the volume to a bearable minimum. What better way to stop the Wizard’s incessant snoring, I thought, than to take the few kilos of amethyst rough that we had in our hut on the roof and place them under the Wizard's side of the bed. After all, he wouldn't notice it. He would never think of looking under the bed for amethyst.

The weeks passed by and turned into months, but to no avail. The Wizard continued to snore. In fact, I think that if anything, his snoring increased. Full of disappointment, I returned to the shop and described the situation to the gem expert standing behind the counter.

After a moment of thought, he said, "But of course, you've given him an overdose! One or two stones are okay, but a few kilos is irresponsible. No wonder he has been snoring even stronger. Try these citrines now. Maybe it will have a better effect on him.”

Turkish tanzanite kitchen

I consider myself a good cook. My partner's Turkish mother taught me to do wonders in my Anglo/Turkish kitchen. The highlight of the cooking is on Thursday in preparation for Shabat (the Sabbath). I will never forget one particular Thursday when I was very tired after a hard day at school teaching. With renewed energy to prepare Friday evening's dishes. I walked into my kitchen and there stood the Wizard, wearing my apron and staring at the oven as if at any moment, a soufflé would rise and he would have to gauge the precise moment to remove it from the oven.

Suddenly he shouted, "it's blue, it's blue.” “What’s blue?” I asked. “A blue soufflé?” To my amazement, and to my disappointment, I must add, the Wizard carefully removed my favorite baking dish, containing a few pieces of blue stones, from the oven. The stones, I later discovered, were tanzanite. What really choked me years later was that in none of his presentations about tanzanite did he ever mention using MY oven but always bragged about those marvelous digital ovens he possessed.

The lost baby oil and talcum powder

When our children were very small, like most mothers, I had a supply of baby oil and talcum powder at home. On numerous occasions, just when I needed them, they would have a habit of "disappearing.” For months I wondered what could possibly be the reason behind this strange disappearance. Eventually I realized that this phenomenon would occur just after the Wizard returned from Africa. I decided to watch his movements closely.

To my surprise, I saw him taking a whole bottle of baby oil and putting it into his jacket pocket. I followed him to the office and discovered him pouring our precious children's baby oil on top of a pile of rough gems while he examined them under a lamp. What a waste of good oil!

And where did I find the missing talcum powder? Lining tin boxes that he used for "cooking" the gems!

The bedroom lapidary

There's nothing wrong with reading before sleeping, I thought early on in our married life. He used to read piles of professional books on mineralogy and gemology deep into the night. And then one day he added a small table with a lamp to our bedroom, where he would sit for hours and sort his gems and research into them, blinding me with the light, until I even got used to it.

But then, about ten years or so into our marriage, the Wizard brought home a new piece of unusual furniture. It was soon put into our bedroom where, smiling from ear to ear, he proudly opened the doors of the cupboard to reveal a machine similar to the one he had in the lapidary. He really believed that I would allow him to cut stones there in my bedroom and that it wouldn't disturb my sleep!

In response to my complaints, he told me that he was in the process of developing a new style of cutting for stones that he would name after me and needed total secrecy. What could be more secure than our bedroom? So, what could I do? For the next three years he cut stones in our bedroom shouting in exultation whenever he was happy with the facet. This was the start of the new Carmel cut to be used by the industry. Until now, nobody but the two of us knew where it was conceived!


Copyright IDEX Magazine 2006, all rights reserved.

]]> http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-045608 No Author Mon, 22 Oct 2007 09:56:08 GMT http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071022-045608 http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-042841
Gems, on the other hand, have more to do with a couple’s bond. They put some color into a sometimes otherwise boring life. However, few know that gems are actually the barometer of a couple’s state of mind, family ties and state of affairs.



A few years ago, I cut a beautiful cashmere color heart shape tanzanite of 33 carats. I heated it and, when examining it carefully, realized that it had quite a bad black inclusion in the center of it coupled with a small crack.

From my gem experience, I knew this stone was going to be my companion for a long time, and that it would be quite difficult to sell at my asking price. You see, I thought the rough was clean and somehow this flaw appeared in the center.

Tucson time came. We prepared our display, and put this attractive blue heart in the center of the display and hoped for the best.

Close to the end of the first day I noticed a couple approaching the display. When they got closer I saw a huge woman and a small man holding hands with big smiles on their faces.

The lady ignored all my spotless gems, grabbed her partner gently by the shoulder and pointed at my tanzanite and said, “my heart, I finally found my heart.” I took the gem out of the display and gave it to her to hold. While admiring the gem, she had this special glow on her face; the glow you know is the sign of a sure sale.

But I knew I had to tell her. I must. So I said, “You know, this gem has a black inclusion and a small crack in the center. It's not perfect.” She looked straight into my eyes from the top of her height and said, “pal, my heart isn't perfect either, I also have a black spot in the center of my heart. How much is this stone please?”



I told her my price, which was not exactly cheap, and informed her that I had bought it as clean rough, hence the high price. She said she was well aware of tanzanite prices and that she would take it. Up to this point it had been an almost regular day. Suddenly, the little creature near her started shouting, “how dare you? I've bought you hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gems this year, you don't have a limit," and walked away.

I looked at the lady; she had tears in her eyes. She looked at me and said she was very sorry. I grabbed a 5 carat Zambian gem amethyst and gave it to her. I told her not to take it to heart too much and to see this amethyst as a token of friendship. She hesitated but took the stone and left.

I put the tanzanite back in the display, but after a few minutes took it out of the display and during the whole show I refused to display it. Don't ask me why.

On the last day, just a few minutes before the show was over, I suddenly saw the couple running towards our booth. The man was all over her, hugging and smiling, and said, “Oh, here you are, we couldn’t find you. We couldn't remember where your booth was. We just asked an Israeli we met whether he, by chance, knew you. He pointed us here and thank goodness we have found you. I came to buy the heart for my girl.”




His "girl" said, "oh, no, it isn't in the display. You've sold my heart to somebody else.” I looked at her straight in the eyes and said, “lady I wouldn't sell your heart, even if somebody paid me double. It was yours from day one. I've waited for you.”

While I was writing the invoice and her cheerful partner was writing the check, she said, “aren’t you wondering how come we're back here?” I said, “Madame I'm not asking but you can tell me if you wish.” I looked at her partner; his smile disappeared as she started to talk. “I was so upset with him the first day that it drove me mad,” she said. “I suddenly realized that all the money we have is mine. All of it! He doesn't have a penny to his soul. We're always pretending that he buys me gems, but it was always my money he spent! After our argument, I called the bank to stop his allowance and told him that I am taking his Porsche away. Look how it has done the job.”

I gave the gem to him to give it to her and once again, they had big smiles on their faces - The effect of gems on couples.

IDEX MAGAZINE | NO 193: GEMS 175

Copyright IDEX Magazine 2006, all rights reserved.]]> http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-042841 No Author Mon, 22 Oct 2007 09:28:41 GMT http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071022-042841 http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-034924


Naturalists and scientists from all around the world will come to admire the hidden world. Soon tourists will be clicking their cameras scaring these rare animals, and the whole world will be talking about it.

And yet, every year, for the last 25 years, in or around February a new world is re-discovered; an enchanted world, the ultimate Galapagos, and everyone takes it for granted.

Instead of walking through the jungles, picking up rare berries, and observing strange animals, the strange creatures I meet are my fellow human beings; each one of them from a different part of the world - some of them very rare species indeed.

I must warn you, that all of them carry the same type of disease that I suffer from. And friends, it is very contagious! Once you get it, it’s there for life. This grave illness is gem disease. And this gem heaven is the Tucson gem and mineral show.

Yes, I know you know that Tucson is in Arizona; and there is really nothing special there, save some odd cacti, the old Tucson Film Studios and Li’l Abner the Steak house.

What you may not realize is that every year this town is hit by a swarm of gem and mineral locusts, the likes of which the eyes have never seen before.

Every little motel, hotel, bungalow, tent or back of a car, turns into a treasure vault.

In each and every lobby, corridor, and room, tables are covered with layers of gems and minerals. Native Americans sell their beautiful gem set jewelry, Chinese come with amazing beads and carvings. Others display minerals from the tiniest micro-size to the size necessitating a truck to transport them home, from the most common to the most rare.

Others display gems found around their villages, in Africa, Madagascar and South America, while others, including myself, display OPV (gems found near other peoples' villages). Though some think that there certainly must be some diamonds mines near Ramat Gan - no real gems are mined in the Holy Land...

The amazing thing is that goods from a few cents to a few hundred thousand dollars are displayed for all to see in Tuscon. And those people selling the items that cost only a few cents are as enthused as those selling very expensive gems.

You can see the most humble small dealer having a gem discussion with the head of some of the most prominent companies in the world, all talking about gems and colors.

Some people bring dinosaur parts to sell. Under each of them, the estimated age and species is listed. As I wandered around the strange looking bones, one of their owners uttered suddenly, “you know, they never really cared about diamonds.” When he realized I didn’t know what he was talking about, he explained, “my dinosaurs were wandering around 100 million years ago, some of your diamonds were not even formed then, or were still soft!” I looked at the face of his 120 million year old big creature and knew I could not really argue about that.

And how was the Tucson show business wise? Very good. Walking through the booths handling semiprecious, it was clear that they were doing well. Also apparent was the use of plenty of ornamental material as part of gem jewelry. From amazonite to moss agate, from sugilite to chaorite, from fossilized coral and pieces of amber to wonderful shapes of baroque pearls to mother of pearl, it seems that corporating nature in jewelry was the theme of today.

The people in the booths just opposite us, who handle beads and strings, were always busy, selling thousands of all types of gems strung into colorful chains. It seemed that the whole world wants to surround their necks with beads.

Speaking to my fellow gem dealers, it was obvious that untreated gems seemed to be in high demand. Scarce natural ruby and blue sapphire, fancy sapphires, beautiful pink and fancy spinels. Aquamarine seemed to be plentiful and was selling very well especially in the higher grades. Tanzanite - my love - has shunned her face this year.

And how was Li’l Abner’s Steak house this year? My daughter had three steaks there out of the five she eats per year –so it is good.

And as for the gem disease, it can be cured quite easily, by buying gems. The trouble is that after three or four gems you get addicted for life, and nothing will cure you.

IDEX MAGAZINE | NO 192: GEMS 159 C

opyright IDEX Magazine 2006, all rights reserved.]]> http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-034924 No Author Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:49:24 GMT http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071022-034924 http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-034429
Just before breaking my arm very badly in Bangkok and realizing that cracks in bones are really much worse than cracks in gems, I had an opportunity to meet with a dear friend of mine, a connoisseur of gems and yet not one of the biggest dealers of all. What he told me amazed me.

He started by saying “you know, everyone in the trade thinks that brown and brownish colors are unattractive to our customers. When you so much as mention brown in conjunction with a certain gem or a certain color, your customer always thinks that it is inferior.” Then he hit me with his declaration, “Can you believe I have changed this concept in the jewelry trade this year?”

Well, it was only lunchtime and he was certainly not drunk. He is a serious person so I began to wonder what on earth he is talking about, to which he unfolded the following story.

“About a year and a half ago I visited Africa with my dear better half, to enjoy Safaris together and to show her what her husband does as a gem buyer. In one of the offices a dealer came to me with a bunch of cut, brown stones and asked me if I would be interested in buying them, to which I immediately uttered, “really brown, you must be joking! Who would buy such gems?” Though being silent most of the trip to Africa, my better half suddenly showed intense interest in those brown gems saying, “wow, aren’t earth colors very popular with everything today?” Well, he tells me, ‘I decided there and then to take my wife’s word for it to buy almost a kilo of this brown rough’.

“Time passed, a few months went by and I sent the parcel to be cut, only to receive many more brown stones, which I knew had no chance on the market, unless a miracle would happen.

By chance, I took the stones with me to the U.S. with all the rest of my goods, all very saleable blues, greens and reds. Sales were mediocre. Then at the last minute, I decided to show my customer, a very prominent jeweler, those very peculiar brown colors. I don’t think that he was really impressed until his wife suddenly walked into the meeting room where I was showing him those brown stones, looked at them and said, “Wow, Earth Tones”. I immediately realized that these were no longer “brown stones”, but from then on, “Earth Tones”. To cut a long story short, he bought the lot from me and since then, suddenly, one can see plenty of jewelry with Earth tones stones set into them.”

‘I don’t want to be too big headed,’ he tells me, “but I believe that I have changed the concept of people to those colors in the same way that butterflies can affect the world’s climate.

” What on earth (tone) is he talking about? That I leave for you to decide, but would you believe that only a couple of weeks ago I received a call from one of my customers asking for... Earth Tones!

Regards

The GemEwizard

Copyright IDEX Magazine 2005, all rights reserved.]]> http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-034429 No Author Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:44:29 GMT http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071022-034429 http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-033736
Chains of jewelry shops were scarce and at most included only a few shops. Thus, the orders to fulfill such jewelry designs never included more than a few dozen stones, or a few hundred stones of the same size, which were fairly easily bought through the existing dealers. With the appearance of jewelry mega chain shops, however, consisting of hundreds or thousands of shops and the appearance of TV selling channels, the jewelry world has gone through a major change, affecting all levels of suppliers deep into the pipeline, mainly the cheaper stone pipeline, hence the Indian pipeline.

The possibility of a single piece of jewelry, consisting of 30 diamonds of 3 points each, being shown on television, and selling 1,000 pieces within one hour has imposed orders in the range of 30,000-100,000 pieces of the same size and quality. No single dealer was capable of supplying such vast quantities of uniform material. Thus, a new position was created in the jewelry pipeline, called the Mega Accumulators. Since no single factory could produce such quantities of uniform size of diamonds, these Mega Accumulators had the right connections with many diamond suppliers and cutters, and were able to fulfill such orders in a relatively short time. The small suppliers found themselves, in many cases, unable to join the party and they had to either expand considerably and cater for such orders or specialize in a special niche in the diamond world or remove themselves from the game.

Such uniform, vast quantities of orders had a strong effect on the diamond pipeline. Producers, in order to keep up their position in the supply, sometimes have intentionally cut diamonds to the size required, although they were losing on the yield. Many suppliers have supplied higher quality goods to accomplish the number they were committed to just so that they could keep their commitments. These have created abnormalities in dealers and manufacturers’ stock since only certain sizes were in demand, and the excess, odd to this order sizes or qualities, remain unsold in the stock.

The Mega accumulators only purchased the sizes that were suitable for their mega orders. At certain times, it seems as if the whole market was looking for the same size and type of stone. This abnormally uniform demand, although met with an adequate supply, has deformed the stock remaining in the hands of the manufacturers and dealers. In many cases, when an order for, say 5 points of KLM color, was thrown into the market at a certain price point, it affected the price of same size, higher quality goods which were not required.

THE EFFECT ON THE JEWELRY DESIGNS

Certainly, the jewelry design world has undertaken a tremendous change, too. Since these TV Mega sales had to cater for the taste of the very many, the designs had to be to the liking of as many as possible people. Unique pieces became obsolete. The only gauge for beauty and uniqueness was the number of pieces of jewelry sold within a certain period of time.

We call it the “Jeansing” effect where a simple design is to the liking of the many. Such designs have to be relatively simple, mediocre in beauty. Another point to bear in mind is that very few designers working for a Mega jeweler, can affect a considerable portion of the jewelry sold, creating some kind of homogeneity where the non-unique is the desired uniqueness.

Virtually the same affect was apparent in the Mega jewelry chains, where hundreds of shops carry identical pieces of jewelry and for which the orders usually came in hundreds or thousands of pieces of jewelry.



Since this jewelry was all made in vast quantities, their cost of production was relatively low - leading to a relatively low cost, very attractive to the consumers.

The direct TV sales have ignored the traditional position of the retailer and directed the jewelry to the cheap to very cheap market end. The small, local shops had to fight in order to survive. In many cases their customers have required jewelry similar to those on TV and also similar prices. Hence, many of them were forced to include within their display TV-like pieces of jewelry.

Soon a new position of jewelry suppliers was created. Such a supplier has specialized in TV-like pieces of jewelry which he supplied to the many small shops which didn’t belong to the Mega chain but needed such jewelry.

All in all, the effect on the world of jewelry has been not very different from that on the clothing and fashion industry, where the effect of a single designer could determine what would be bought in thousands of shops.

Regards The GemEwizard Copyright © IDEX ]]> http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-033736 No Author Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:37:36 GMT http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071022-033736 http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-033410 FACT 1
The longer you are in the gem and diamond trade, the less you know you know.

In the early days, when I was an apprentice jeweler in London during the day and studied gemology at night, passing my gemology exams with distinction, I was sure that within a few months, or at most a couple of years when I would handle more gems, I would know practically all there is to know about the gem world.

Five years passed by and I was handling and learning about many more gemstones when I realized that there is undoubtedly much more to learn about them. And now, after 33 years, everybody else seems to think that I’m an expert in gems, but I, myself, know that there is so much more to learn about them all and everyday and every new stone may prove that I’m right and teach me something new.

FACT 2
Diamonds prices are accurate in the eye of the beholder or diamonds have no value - they are just a percentage off.

Everybody in the trade is familiar with the leading diamond pricelist. This is said to represent certain prices of diamonds and yet, depending on your position in the trade, these prices may be as much as 50% off the actual price. In fact, most diamond dealers do not talk about actual dollar prices but say, for example: “minus 28%”, meaning that the value of the diamond is 28% off the current pricelist. Others will argue that it is more valuable, only minus 24%.

Somehow nobody seems to mention the actual price - only a percentage off! Can you imagine in your mind walking into a shop and asking the price of a kilo of cucumbers and being answered: “12% off”?

FACT 3
The first gem you meet in a parcel is either the best or the lousiest of the lot!

Please don’t ask me why, but it doesn’t matter what size parcel you are examining, somehow the first gem you pick up is either the best or the lousiest. Never one that actually represents the average price of the parcel.

When I asked a fellow gem dealer if he agreed with this assumption he said yes and continued: “Don’t you know that the first person that you meet in a new city is either the priest or the prostitute?” It took me many years to understand what he meant but since then I have always tried to avoid the priests and the prostitutes of the parcel and concentrate on examining the crowds.

FACT 4
Gems look worse after being purchased by you and much more attractive after you have sold them!

Usually the day after you have purchased an important gem when you know that it is yours, and you examine it carefully devoid of the excitement of the purchase, the stone tends to look slightly less attractive. It is somehow, when not under the influence of the illusions of the gem, that the stone reveals its true self.

However, once you have sold it and it belongs to somebody else, again the stone will acquire all its original charms and illusions.

Regards

The GemEwizard

Copyright © IDEX]]> http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-033410 No Author Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:34:10 GMT http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071022-033410 http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-032724
You never really know what they mean because, honest to god, nothing could be further from the “same” as what you asked for. Even after a while (30 years in my case) I could not grasp exactly what they meant. Sometimes it means that the buttons are the same and sometimes that it is the same manufacturer, and sometimes it means “you asked for a shirt, these are trousers that look similar...”. But recently I finally got it. Ok, you ask yourself, what has all this got to do with gems?

A few weeks ago, I crossed the street from my office to visit a friend in the Diamond Exchange. He used to deal in gemstones and now, they say, he is very strong in fancy color diamonds. And since we are working very hard to adapt the Gemewizard Color Assessment Module to the colors of diamonds using some consultants within the trade, I decided that I should try to convince such a knowledgeable person to join our team of consultants. So there I was, gazing at many colorful diamonds, from light yellow to vivid yellow, from pink to brownish orange to slightly violet, and a one-carat pinkish reddish diamond quite heavily included, proudly reigned in the center of the display. Suddenly it hit me. I have exactly the same colors in my fancy sapphire production. I asked him to bear with me for a while and rushed to my office to show him my beautiful new production and collection of fancy sapphires. Well, we took a beautiful vivid yellow diamond from his collection and matched it with exactly the same color as my natural yellow sapphires, I asked him how much his gem cost and he answered about $16,000 per carat where my gem cost $550 per carat.

Then we looked at one of his 2+ carat pinks and compared it to the same color 2+ carat gem deep pink sapphire (mind you, my sapphire was deeper and brighter than his diamond.) How much? I asked. He replied around $70,000 per carat. My sapphire was $1,200 per carat. But the big blow to me was his reddish, heavily included diamond. I have the same color beautiful red sapphire in 4 carats and mine is gem clean. People urged me to define it as a ruby but I insist it is a sapphire. Anyway, he asked me how much I want for my 4 carat sapphire and I proudly replied $3,000 per carat. He asked if I would accept $2,500 since he wanted to give it to his wife to celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary. How could I refuse such a request, especially when a husband and wife's relationship was at stake? I accepted.

I asked him how much he wanted for his heavily included ugly reddish diamond. He became thoughtful and said: “Ugly you call it? Well, from you, I want only three hundred for my included red.” I was so glad one of my sapphires was more valuable than his diamond of the same color even though mine was free of inclusions. I decided on the spot to buy it just in order to show it to my customers and prove to them that the same color sapphires may be more attractive than a diamond and more valuable. So I said: will you accept $275. He became serious and asked me how I would pay and I said: “The same way you’ll pay - cash!” He suddenly realized that I had not understood him and said: “I meant three hundred thousand per carat, yes?” and told me a one carat diamond like the sapphire he had just bought from me was sold for $900,000-plus several years ago.

I packed my beautiful sapphires and as I walked back to my office, I kept thinking: “Same, same but different!".

Regards

The GemEwizard

Copyright © IDEX]]> http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-032724 No Author Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:27:24 GMT http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071022-032724 http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-030409
Call it Murphy’s Law, call it whatever you want but it applies to the diamond and jewelry trade just as it does in every other trade and walk of life. Here are some of the examples I have come across.

Losing in the gem and diamond world is really making money
Gem and diamond dealers are like babies, the more they cry about their misfortune the more they grow (in business). As I asked one of my friends: “How, in the name of all gems, if you lose and lose, did you become so big and rich?” To which he replied that he lost a great deal. “But how can you lose a lot and still look very good?” His simple answer was: “I sold to other dealers who lost even more”. And how are they now, I asked with astonishment: “Oh, they are fine, even richer than me”.

You never have enough of the right size that your customer asks for
No matter how big your production is, and how precisely you aim to fill your customers’ needs, you’ll never have enough of the “right things”. In my early days as a gem cutter, when I used to cut parcel productions of maybe $10,000 in total, and displayed the cut goods to my potential customers they never found enough of the sizes they were looking for in my parcel. At those times I longed for the days when I would produce enough so that a customer would find all his needs fulfilled with my goods.

And then I grew and started producing productions of say $50,000 at a time, cutting many beautiful stones, waiting in anticipation for my customers who looked at my parcels and still did not find all they needed and asked for goods I did not have. And then with God’s help and some luck I reached the stage today where I am producing really large parcels with practically all sizes and shapes which I show to my customers. They, of course, never find enough of what they are looking for.

The further you are from the source the bigger the discount you get and the longer the terms of payment
In the mines, close to the digging place of gems you always, but always, have to pay cash and rarely get more than a few percent discount. In the cutting centers, such as in Bangkok and Jaipur, you may ask for 30 days terms but still get only a real 10 - 20 percent discount. In the consuming countries your business customers will demand 90-120 days terms and 30 percent discount. And finally to the actual consumer in the shop where the goods are sold at a 50-80 percent discount and with very long term credit, some even give the buyer mileage points.

I am still trying to figure out this phenomenon, because using my poor judgment, one is better to buy gems as a private customer, and sell it to the mines. He or she will get a better price and have the money way before payment is due. And then I remembered Einstein and his theory of relativity...

And last, but not least: the beauty of gems is not necessarily in the eye the beholder.

Regards

The GemEwizard

IDEX MAGAZINE | NO 183: GEMS

Copyright © IDEX]]> http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-030409 No Author Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:04:09 GMT http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071022-030409 http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-030240
It is fascinating as a gem and as a gem product. I fell in love with the stone on my first encounter with it in the early 1970s when it was brought by a customer to my gem lab. I don’t really care in what color it is normally found in nature (brown) and that a short and not very sophisticated heating process turns it into beautiful blue.

This gem has sent me for the last 30 years, for months on end, to Kenya and the mines in the Merelani hills in Tanzania where conditions used to be terrible in the early days, buying in the bush from the Masai miners and exporting it to the west.

I spent years trying to refine my tanzanite heating process, including a custom-made computer-controlled oven with many stages and properties, only to find, fairly late in life, that my gem behaves best when cooked on a fire or gas stove packed in a cigarette paper.

The history of tanzanite begins in the late 1960s when Christie’s introduced this fine stone to the international market by launching a campaign. The stone was accepted with great enthusiasm and fetched very high prices, well over $1,000 a carat for fine, large pieces. But due to unstable supplies, the market was limited mainly to collectors.

When we first arrived with calibrated tanzanite in the US market in the late 1970s, many dealers were reluctant to look at this soft gem. One even told me that the gem was so soft (6+ on the Mohs scale of hardness) that it can crack even if one sneezes on it, which is a gross exaggeration, but come to think about it, not so far from the truth. I once had a 15 carat gem that lost its corner when I accidentally dropped it on the table. (Don’t try it at home!)

The 1980s saw a surge of supply from the mines, which resulted in greater recognition and appreciation of the stones. By the late 1980s, supply and demand were both high. Prices were reasonably low resulting in many designers using this remarkable stone as a centerpiece for their jewelry. The 1990s saw the golden era of tanzanite as a commercial product.

Outstanding tanzanites were used for fine quality jewelry, but on the other hand, inferior qualities of tanzanites, pale or too violet, which were once considered to be too poor for use in jewelry, are quite commonly used today. Parcels of tanzanite cut in calibrated sizes are in high demand.

One should not forget that a fine blue tanzanite of 10 carats could cost today about $5,000-$10,000 a piece, whereas a similar color of sapphire weighing 10 carats could cost anything between $30,000- $100,000 a piece. Because color is so dominant in jewelry today, big, colorful, sapphire blue, natural stones at a reasonable price is only feasible using tanzanite.

In 1997, for no apparent reason, the price of tanzanite collapsed with the gems dropping in value by the day. This caused many people, including your humble servant, to lose lots of dollars because of his love for, and loyalty to, the gem. They say it was a flood of gems from the mine. The prices were down for two years, then from mid-1998 up to mid-2001 they rose sharply, bluing many jewels and reigning over many TV shopping evenings.

And then came 9/11 and the false rumors that the gem was generating funds for terrorists... and the prices died for a couple of years. Since then new players have been in the market, some trying to stabilize the market and create some kind of a controlled environment.

Let’s not forget that tanzanite does not have the 1,000 year history and record of sapphire, hence it is more sensitive to changes. However, I believe that the fact that there is only one locality in which the stone is found, coupled with the relatively small supply, and the ever-growing demand and interest of the world market, and the fact that the Holy Bible mentioned only one big flood, tanzanite’s place in the gem-world is secured for many years to come.

As for myself, my love for the gem is as strong today as the first day I set eyes on it...

Regards

The GemEwizard

Copyright © IDEX]]> http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/index.php?entry=entry071022-030240 No Author Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:02:40 GMT http://www.gemewizard.com/Gemeblog/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071022-030240