January 24 Through February 4—TUCSON, ARIZONA: Annual show
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 3:18 am 
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If I remember correctly, I think it was Richard Hughes in the chat that he did with us who mentioned that the heated yellow sapphires were no longer selling because of the BE issue. The unheated ones were in high demand. I could be wrong on that, I'll have to check the chat log.

I don't see any reason why the same isn't going to apply to the blues.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 4:00 am 
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Hi all

I expect and hope you are right but it has taken some years I feel
for a real swing back to natural yellow. I have a 10ct natural yellow of very fine quality and colour that a local has asked me to sell as he has had no interest at all and he has tried pretty hard to sell (only in Australia).

Certain outlets may be going well selling these natural yellows but I would fear that at the bottom of the supply chain (the dumb miner), he would still feel the effects for all but his top grade.

Life is full of these little hiccups and all we can do is think and act in the best way we can.

I will not be using BE out of principle, time will tell but I have had emails from several of my good customers today supporting this stand. We will see if we are still around in the years to come, this will be the test.

cheers

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 11:40 am 
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Hi All,

I found an interesting editorial about diffusion treatment by Bill Larson - worth a read...

http://www.palagems.com/gods_graves_sapphires.htm

Cheers!
Greg


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 Post subject: B-Treatement
PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:37 pm 
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Hi,

Even though I don’t agree with B-treatment as it has effected the true natural colours within Gems, and also these Thai Company's benefit financially while others are trying to sell there natural Gems and it seems not succeeding to well. I feel part of the problem is Company’s who are having this trouble have not invested enough money in Marketing there Gems(Sapphires) and create a Brand name for example.
For example if BMW & other Car dealers did not invest so much money in there marketing campaigns and kept there quality control the way it is they would have been out of business years ago as the Asian market that produce cars have effected there business also.

So for me there is two options

1- Marketing natural Gems and educating the public and making them understand more about the treatment process so they will be more aware before buying a gem product. (Brand Name)
2- Or just start B-treatment yourself ,once you gain the knowledge how to do this process.

Perhaps if many Mines/Company’s came together and invested in a Marketing campaign this would help and maintain the natural Gem and eliminate these different types of treatment that are effecting the industry, sounds simple but all takes money thus have good long term effects for future company’s. :)

Anthony Galea
Gem Wholesaler/Jewellery Designer Manufacture Australia

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:15 am 
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First, welcome to the forum Anthony.

To take the car analogy a bit further, Mercedes has the E class (very expensive) and the C class, (considerably less expensive). There is obviously a market for both.

The branding is a more difficult problem, at least as far as the Australian sapphires are concerned. From what I understand, most of the good stones from Australia are sold as being from somewhere else, while the really dark inky stones, regardless of where they are from, tend to be called "Australian sapphires". They have already been "branded" in the eyes of the public, negatively unfortunately. I suppose that this could be overcome, but as you point out, it would take a concerted effort on the part of the industry in Australia to reverse it. Not that it can't be done, one only has to look at the difference in perception concerning the Japanese cars when they first hit the market (rattling little tin can death traps) and the image that they have now. Ditto for the Chinese fresh water pearls, those little rice krispy things were awful, but look at what they are turning out now.

At least with the internet, the job would be a bit easier. But it would still take the miners marketing their best stones directly (and probably together, maybe a joint website database type of thing where all could submit their best) rather than selling them to foreign dealers who then are tempted to pass them off as being from Ceylon or elsewhere. That might be financially difficult for some of them to do at first. It might be possible to associate the other stones mined in Australia into the same concept as well, rather than just sapphires.

Which leaves the less desirable stones, what to do with them? Although few people who love the natural beauty of gemstones are enthusiastic about the treatments that they undergo, the fact remains that there is a market for them.

I don't see why, since these treatments exist, are being used and are making a great deal of money for those involved, reality shouldn't be stared in the face. There are many people who wouldn't be caught dead wearing a BE treated sapphire, but there are probably many more who couldn't care less, they are buying their stones for show or fashion, and not particularly as an investment. It's not much different than Moissanite, CZ, any of the synthetics, or for that matter, decent costume jewelry.

Keeping in mind that the less than perfect stones need some help to become beautiful, and the fact that they are being sold to the burners who are then making considerably more profit off of them than the miners, why not think about cutting the middleman out of this, and having them treated and being sold by the miners as well? Sort of a "C" class sapphire. Or literally incorporating them into "upscale" costume (or other) jewelry designs, with full disclosure (and associated information on the treatments and how common they are).


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 Post subject: B-Treatement
PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 10:03 am 
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Hi,

Yeah you are correct about the Mercedes Benz focusing on the lower end of the market. I have a good friend who cuts Gems superb and he has cut some darker Australian blue Sapphires that are usually sold at the lower end of the market, but once cut superb the value rises considerably, so I guess quality of cut can play a big part in the sales of Gems. Unfortunately there is not enough good cutters who will share their knowledge so this is a problem in its self. I think the only way is to buy their knowledge perhaps. I feel if all Gems were cut superb they would not have to sell to the large buyers, as there profits would increase nicely

Anthony.

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 6:28 pm 
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Forgive me for being fuzzy as I am old. But I think Tom Chathams father, Carrol, died from the exposure to toxic chemicals in the lab.


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 7:50 pm 
I am aware that Tom Chatham's father died from exposure to toxic chemicals in the lab. (But I believe it was more of his desire and love to experiment than exposure that killed him.)

How many scientists of the past don't? Marie Curie died from ridiculous amounts of radiological exposure too. Her flask turned blue from radium salts, and she was handling them with bare hands.

They simply weren't aware of the dangers yet. It took a long time for people to realise mercury, lead and many other metals and compounds are poisonous. Their experience, our lessons. They died so that we may live. We put on masks, hide behind lead shields during x-ray and whatever other precautions now when they don't in the past.

As for superb cutting, the Thais can do it, so long as you tell them to concentrate on cutting nice gems and not on weight retention. They will be glad to do so. If you want them to cut the not-so-nice looking gems well, they can do it. But so can they cut the very nice looking high temperature light element treated gems very well too.


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 8:30 pm 
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Hi ,

Any person can have a gem cut well , when you have 1000's of cts comming out of your mine you need a few hundred Gem cutters cutting superb cut Gems , I dont think Mines from Australia or China are going to send all there rough Sapphires to Thailand to be cut and then returned to Mine & distributed again.

Who is this Theis some type of God of the Gem trade :?: If anything they are screwing the Gem trade perhaps with there Treatements :x


:lol:

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 10:36 pm 
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Hello again Anthony, good to see you here.

Your points are very valid and some of us in the industry have been fully aware of the issues for some time. However knowing what the problem is and actually fixing it are two differnt matters.

Some years ago when prices and demand were good and there was a lot of mining activity, you would have thought that such an idea as getting together to promote our product would have worked. The concept then was to set up a co-operative and centrally sell and promote our product to the world. I thought it was a good idea then but it failed as most miners at that stage couldnt see the need - we had buyers and a reasonable price so why bother.

Now with only a few miners left and most of these in a tough financial position - to go to them and say let's promote sapphire, they say "good idea but we havn't the spare cash".

A centralised network of miners selling our product in an orderly way could still help today but as a group we seem to lack the foresight and ability to work together.

Brand recognition can work - even our small operation has gained a good customer base in a very short time. This despite making the obvious marketing mistake of calling ourselves Aussie Sapphire with all the baggage that goes along with that (Australian sapphire = dark, inky and inferior quality ??). With some serious money to promote our product properly, I'm sure the results would be even better.

There is a market out there that demands natural product, there is another market that is simply price driven with no interest in what the product is or where it came from or if it is natural or manmade.

Both markets are important,and neither are bad. Some like ourselves choose to supply the natural product, others can supply the other need. Unfortunately, this market division is not that clear-cut as the coloured gemstone game is more complex than that (eg. different types of treatments are regarded differently, product disclosure issues, etc) but we have to work within the current market climate as well as we can.

cheers

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Andrew Lane
(Aussie Sapphire)
www.aussiesapphire.com.au


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 Post subject: Aus Sapphires
PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:51 am 
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Hi Andrew,

I don’t think anyone could have predicted the impact B-treatment and other types of treatments had and are having within the Gem industry, definitely need big dollars to invest in marketing Australian Sapphires, but I do feel its possible. Who knows maybe there is an investor out there that might have interest someday? It would be ashame though to see the Australian Sapphire industry fade away as we have some beautiful Sapphires coming out of our Mines. I think in time people will be more aware of these treatments, and these company's who are using these treatements in the future will suffer, its just a matter of time really, you cant go on cheating the market for ever.

8)

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PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:01 pm 
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Hi All,

Richard Hughes posted a follow-up to his comments on BE-treated blue sapphires. I think the best policy here is to wait definitive lab reports from AIGS, AGTA, etc. It is probably premature at this point to make any conclusions about market impact, etc... Personally, I think/thought it was odd that the Be-treatment was being applied to blues since it creates yellow color centers - not an improvement for blue sapphires!
Cheers!
Greg

Courtesy of Richard Hughes.
Postscript – February 8, 2006
"Consultation with other gemologists and scientists at the recent Tucson show suggest that the beryllium detected in sapphire samples recently is possibly a result of accidental contamination from treatment in furnaces previously used with beryllium treatment, rather than a deliberate attempt to burn with beryllium. Certainly the circular inclusions that some have suggested are indicative of this treatment are not necessarily so, as I have seen such inclusions in many stones for over a decade, long before the advent of beryllium heating. Such inclusions merely indicate high-temperature heating, rather than a more nefarious cause."


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:28 pm 
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You know, this is all very interesting and current. I've got to ask myself how pervasive is this in the market? Did someone buy a few parcels of unusally fine looking sapphire and take it to a lab that has the equipment to analize the chemical make up of an individual stone and then pronounce "BUYERS BEWARE !"


Can we reasonably assume that every yellow, orange or blue sapphire on the market has been enhanced with some sort of berillium treatment?

Have the burners that deal with corundum become so advanced that every stone on the market is now suspect? Do we now have to send every $500.00 dollar yellow sapphire we buy to a major gem lab for a $500.00 lab report?

Before we panic an entire industry, we need to find out exactly what's happening, who's doing it, and how prevalent it is.

Cutting edge research is wonderful, it keeps the industry honest and on it's toes. It can also work conversley by creating paranoia and making every gem (in this case sapphire) a likely suspect for shananighans.

Do we as gemologists have to become chemists as well, with million dollar labs to sniff out every possible contamination of every possible gem species available?

Is this all a result of a few burners that stumbled upon an enhancement by accident or a carefully planned conspiracy to turn the market upside down?

Before any miners or dealers start constructing or reconstructing business plans as to how to take advantage of these new developements, we need a clarification as to what these new treatments mean now and for the future.

Every new treatment for gemstones has been opposed at the begining and only after a long hard fight have they become accepted as a natural part of the gemstone industry.

We have to decide whether to treat these new alchemists as gemological outlaws or partners in an industry that has an increasing appetite for inexpensive and beautiful gemstones.

I believe that the more these treaters are regarded as shysters and neer'do wells, the more they will resist and remain anonomous. Maybe we should welcome them in and allow them their market segment. Only then will they be willing to share their secrets and enjoy their consumer market with full disclosure of their treatment process.

We've all heard the old cliche of "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" in this case the enemy may be us.

Let's get behind the scene and see what's really happening with this before we pass judgement.

The purist market will always exist regardless of what happens on the marketing end and the purist which is a very elite and becoming more elite end of the market will survive and thrive within it's own hemisphere.

Let's not panic just yet. Let's see what this all means before we pass judgement and in doing so, we'll be better prepared for future changes.



I expect an antoginist response. :)


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 Post subject: B-treatement
PostPosted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:43 pm 
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Hi,

When you have time hop on Ebay and have a look at the prices of some Gems there, so many are treated and buyers have no idea.

Also buying a few Gems for use in making Jewellery usually the risk is not so high, so judgement perhaps at times is not so important. But Wholesalers like myself when buying 100's or 1000's of cts, this creates huge problems, I have had so many chances to buy Sapphires that are nice blue in colour at such low prices and told only heat treatment is used, this is a concern I feel, unfortunately most of the Gem/Jewellery could not afford to test every individual stone you buy especially in large orders like I mentioned. I’m just judging from my experience over the past year or so and do feel its becoming a problem that has to be looked at and hopefully controlled.

8)

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2006 2:33 am 
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Hi all,
JB and Anthony - both your points are fair.
Firstly in the trade we have feared another treatment issue was sure to raise its head given the level of experimentation that has been going on at a frantic pace. Although I use none of the newer treatments, I have tried to keep a close eye on developments. Blue was the obvious next target as the treatments of yellows and orange are so widespread that they could only benefit from fine-tuning of the basic method which doesnt offer the big dollar returns of a new treatment for blues.

I think it would be safe to say that you can assume that most yellow and orange has been treated with Be, I dont think this is the case with Blue.

It is not practical to test every stone so buyers must shop very carefully. If they prefer non-Be, they should buy at the source or from a reseller who will stand behind their written guarantee. It would seem that if people dont mind if they are buying Be-treated stones, then it should not matter except if the value changes dramatically such as happened with the yellows previously. Bottom line is that we need to know more about the whole issue and how it affect all sectors of the industry so here's hoping for some open communication on this over the next short while.

Lets certainly not panic - this blue treatment has some more research to be carried out before we know for sure. I hope sensible people like Vincent and the other big labs are given support to investigate.

I wish it were possible to gain the support of the burners and get behind the scenes for all the facts. However, having been involved in this game for a long time I am quite sure that it just wont happen. The whole gem game has long been known for its secrets and not much has changed.

cheers

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www.aussiesapphire.com.au


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