Serge wrote: ↑11 months ago
FarmMom if you don’t mind me asking and us getting in trouble I would be very interested in knowing where you get your gemstones and where you send them for verification? I have a rather small amount of different gemstones and I’m interested in adding to my collection but want to be careful when it comes to purchasing them. You’re very knowledgeable and have spent time learning about them and I wish I could see your collection. I don’t think we live very far apart and how long does it take you to get to Charlotte? I live in upper East Tennessee close to the Virginia and North Carolina.
I don't think I'd get in trouble for mentioning LAB names -- although I would like to wait until I do get the results back so I can verify quality and care on their part. GIA certainly did NOT show any regard for quality and I will not be using them again. They do have a nice listing on their website in regards to how to send stones and what services they offer, so they make you THINK you'll be getting taken care of, lol. Many sites don't list anything at all, and many won't respond to e-mails. It's frustrating. The lab in Germany is running roughly $400 to test ONE STONE. I wouldn't even bother except that I have a MASSIVE collection of them and all 3 of my suppliers just asked if I want more. Seeing that they are harder to find on my gem site is making me nervous too. Shop LC was talking about welo opals the other day, supply running out. That is correct, the popularity of the stone never really peaked so the mine owners stopped producing in favor of minerals that DO make money. Prices have easily tripled online. a few months back I bought a very nice 7ct welo for under $30. Now the same opal is selling for $80-90. It's a bit of a slap in the face as I wanted some for my jewelry store. I did manage to snag some last night at auction for more reasonable pricing, but there just are not as many available.
In regards to buying quality, you cannot just pick one vendor and expect everything to be quality, unless you are shopping through a high end stone dealer and everything will be expensive.
Most rough as it's mined, is taken by the locals to buyers. Those buyers take the rough and market it to cutters in various countries. The cutters then sell it to dealers who can speak english and deal with computers and shipping. Then you get other sellers that buy it from them and relist on ebay and such places. Most don't know about the origins, or treatments (unless they did them) or what to look for in quality. I do have ONE GUY out of Thailand/Pakistan who has AMAZING stones, all high quality but can also get whatever you need. He specializes in GIANT collector's stones too. But he's easy to work with and his prices are a bit higher than others but the trade off is fast shipping and very easy to get ahold of and talk with. I was going to give his info to my local jeweler to help him out.
Sadly, these guys are not the ones pulling in big cash like some places, so I'm happy to help him out whenever I can. If there's a specific stone you'd like, he could find you one in your budget and quality. Always do FedEx shipping if available. It's $40 but you get peace of mind, and it arrives in less than 7 days (usually 2-4). he just listed 3 STUNNING d-block, large carat tanzanites on his Instagram site (how we usually do business is IG). All I have for him is a username, which can be used to track down his website, his instagram site, and the auction site I always buy from. I will list it here in a later post once I know what my stones are -- I don't need any SLC heads rubbing their hand together excitedly and buying all my stone out from my supplier before I know what they are and if I want more
So once you see a NEW post on my stones stating what they are, come back to THIS post to find his username. Write it down because I'll delete it soon after
I'll try to bury it a bit on the forum so it's NOT directly under my new post too..
I would be happy to haul all my stuff out to you to help you understand gems a bit more, lol, but it's a bit more like a 17 hour drive? It takes 12hrs from here in MI to DC (where I used to live), so I'd imagine going further south would be another 5 hours ;D
You can look-up "frenchtons in michigan", Google will pop up a cute photo of a puppy rolling in Michigan grass! I'm a bit partial to blue-eyed dogs though ;D
