This is Jim Fiebig - in the upper left with the black ball cap - our project leader. To his right is Tom Schlegel from Vancouver, who assisted in many ways, but was instrumental in tackling all the photography stuff for the trip. In front of Tom is his wife, Lisa Elser (with loupe in hand). Lisa is a faceter and dealer in faceting rough. Then, to her right is Nancy and Debbie from Devon Fine Jewelry of northern New Jersey. They were having a blast on this trip and made awesome travel partners.
Today, everything broke loose. Jim had been working the phones the day before to arrange for a gathering of the local dealers, and they showed. From 2pm until sunset, the rough and cut stone dealers came to take their best shot. I lost count, but somewhere around 40 dealers came through our “special hotel balcony arrangement“ in a matter of hours. They were all vying for our attentions, and money. This is especially true now since there has been an embargo in place restricting the movement of rough out of the country since February 2008. They were hungry to show us anything and everything. It was at this event that we worked on sharpening our negotiating skills. Technique here is very similar to what I’ve experienced in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, mainland Africa and South America. They, of course, started very high - so high that it was laughable. Then, we responded with ridiculous offers that surely would have embarrassed us back home. And so, back and forth we went until somewhere in the middle it reached an equilibrium to everyone’s agreement; though not necessarily everyone’s satisfaction.
Dealers were very eager - as you can see in their faces. He is holding a large Aquamarine specimen.As to be expected, there were some mishaps too. Not every stone turned out to be what it was purported to be. In one parcel of large Aqua’s there were two Aqua-colored glass imitations. Surprisingly, they were offered by one of the “big hitters” in the local Tana market. Really, we were in one of the poorest countries in the world, and the local dealers had the skills and the ability to take advantage of anyone who made themselves available. Fortunately for us, one of our team picked these two simulants out of the batch. Always handy to have some gemological tools with us.
So here’s a short list of some of the items acquired, or wished we acquired….
1-The finest pink color Morganite that I have ever seen - and at first we thought is was Tourmaline. Way too included to be faceted stones, but may work for some cutters as cabbed goods. Cost at $400 to $500 per gram - and they were large pieces, 10 to 80 grams each.
2-Golden Scapolite… though first presented as Golden Beryl, it was still interesting and in reasonably good sizes.
3-Lots of richly colored Amethyst with many in sizes that would produce 10 to 30 carat size stones. The same goes for Citrine, though it was the golden color only.
4-Very little Ruby, rough or cut goods. But that is pretty much what we’d heard would happen. The only goods we were shown were glass-filled Ruby rough just returned from Chanthaburi.
5-Bags of blue Sapphire rough, but it was only good for cutting melee and smalls. There were only a few pieces of larger roughs but as they were being sold as singles it would be about the same price as buying them already cut. So we didn’t bother. Most looked just like Sri Lankan goods.
6-Sphene, lots of it. Included goods were in abundance, none were selected that day. [though we did buy some at a later date]
7-Tourmalines, mostly in the ‘green range’, but not quite a green that I would find attractive, or could be able to sell.
8-Rose Quartz - nice goods were available, though none were selected. I am sure we were all thinking this is something that could be picked up most anytime, whether here or in Tucson. So there was no urgency to fuss with it.
Well that is the bulk of what we saw today - as we know it will change as we move about to the different markets in the country. Time to rest our eyes, have a few beers and chat about today’s finds.
1-The finest pink color Morganite that I have ever seen - and at first we thought is was Tourmaline. Way too included to be faceted stones, but may work for some cutters as cabbed goods. Cost at $400 to $500 per gram - and they were large pieces, 10 to 80 grams each.
2-Golden Scapolite… though first presented as Golden Beryl, it was still interesting and in reasonably good sizes.
3-Lots of richly colored Amethyst with many in sizes that would produce 10 to 30 carat size stones. The same goes for Citrine, though it was the golden color only.
4-Very little Ruby, rough or cut goods. But that is pretty much what we’d heard would happen. The only goods we were shown were glass-filled Ruby rough just returned from Chanthaburi.
5-Bags of blue Sapphire rough, but it was only good for cutting melee and smalls. There were only a few pieces of larger roughs but as they were being sold as singles it would be about the same price as buying them already cut. So we didn’t bother. Most looked just like Sri Lankan goods.
6-Sphene, lots of it. Included goods were in abundance, none were selected that day. [though we did buy some at a later date]
7-Tourmalines, mostly in the ‘green range’, but not quite a green that I would find attractive, or could be able to sell.
8-Rose Quartz - nice goods were available, though none were selected. I am sure we were all thinking this is something that could be picked up most anytime, whether here or in Tucson. So there was no urgency to fuss with it.
Well that is the bulk of what we saw today - as we know it will change as we move about to the different markets in the country. Time to rest our eyes, have a few beers and chat about today’s finds.
Takes a big personality to take a picture of one's self and hand it off for distribution.... this is Tom Cushman who assisted us as we pursued rough dealers throughout the country.
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