Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
Gawd....what a bottom feeder and people ask why I was insulted every time I was referred to as a sales associate. I left a comment requesting that the ID reports are provided.
One more. Look how uncomfortable the two show hosts are.They know the guy is lying through his teeth. I thought they were going to jump under the table.
The show that Don K. showed his red apatite is the Gem shopping network, 24/7 jewelry sales & gems for sale. Last week this channel showed this material for 2 days, less than 400 items to the public were offered, nothing too much said about the stone only the color was not seen for sale in this quantity ever. The material appeared VS class, color was very good & eye clean or better. Since there is no material since the sale being found, 3 yrs ago, this was stated as a '1 of a kind sale', never to be repeated. As was told to viewers, if u buy it, u will have something extremely unique. The stuff is rare, & soft, @ 5 on the mohs scale, good for earings, pendents & careful handling, this not disclosed at sale. All natural. Most items priced from $1495.00 up to $8000.00 per set gems. Jewelry was earrings to pendents, any configuration with surround diamonds & all gold work 18kt yellow. At the end of sale, there were only 10 items or so that were returned to Don. These were not offered since then I have seen. Sales were brisk, the phone lines were jammed & people were buying to get an example of extreme rarity, as repeated by the sales staff. I have seen many sales or rare gems but this was one of the most intense sales Ive seen so far, Im happy to say I saw it happen. The gem network has a policy of return of any item bought from them off the show up to 30 days of sale, unconditional, no questions asked. This gives the buyer plenty of time to verify product value/content-
So much for "one of a kind never to be repeated " .Don K was back on GSN thursday night with hundreds more pieces of this stuff in mountings. I called in while on air and spoke to GSN rep. Larry. I asked Larry to to let me ask Don some questions about this material on air .He said to me ,Nick (somehow he knew my name),he won't answer your questions on air but I will pass him a note. Ok-tell him Nicky Newark said that on a previous show you stated that samples of this material is going to all the major labs for verification. Larry states that GSN has no such verification. Tell him I purchased Paraiba Tourmaline from him 20 years ago and when tested it was not.I think this material is also being misrepresented. The show host Kurt then told the audience that he was reading on a gemology forum that no gemologist's have ever seen this material so they know nothing about it. He then stated "we are moving on to something else and pulled away the red apatite ( very strange because it was selling very well ).Next up- 1 in a hundred thousand star sapphires is a 12 ray. He had a ton of them .).
The show that Don K. showed his red apatite is the Gem shopping network, 24/7 jewelry sales & gems for sale. Last week this channel showed this material for 2 days, less than 400 items to the public were offered, nothing too much said about the stone only the color was not seen for sale in this quantity ever. The material appeared VS class, color was very good & eye clean or better. Since there is no material since the sale being found, 3 yrs ago, this was stated as a '1 of a kind sale', never to be repeated. As was told to viewers, if u buy it, u will have something extremely unique. The stuff is rare, & soft, @ 5 on the mohs scale, good for earings, pendents & careful handling, this not disclosed at sale. All natural. Most items priced from $1495.00 up to $8000.00 per set gems. Jewelry was earrings to pendents, any configuration with surround diamonds & all gold work 18kt yellow. At the end of sale, there were only 10 items or so that were returned to Don. These were not offered since then I have seen. Sales were brisk, the phone lines were jammed & people were buying to get an example of extreme rarity, as repeated by the sales staff. I have seen many sales or rare gems but this was one of the most intense sales Ive seen so far, Im happy to say I saw it happen. The gem network has a policy of return of any item bought from them off the show up to 30 days of sale, unconditional, no questions asked. This gives the buyer plenty of time to verify product value/content-
So much for "one of a kind never to be repeated " .Don K was back on GSN thursday night with hundreds more pieces of this stuff in mountings. I called in while on air and spoke to GSN rep. Larry. I asked Larry to to let me ask Don some questions about this material on air .He said to me ,Nick (somehow he knew my name),he won't answer your questions on air but I will pass him a note. Ok-tell him Nicky Newark said that on a previous show you stated that samples of this material is going to all the major labs for verification. Larry states that GSN has no such verification. Tell him I purchased Paraiba Tourmaline from him 20 years ago and when tested it was not.I think this material is also being misrepresented. The show host Kurt then told the audience that he was reading on a gemology forum that no gemologist's have ever seen this material so they know nothing about it. He then stated "we are moving on to something else and pulled away the red apatite ( very strange because it was selling very well ).Next up- 1 in a hundred thousand star sapphires is a 12 ray. He had a ton of them .).
Maybe we should stop to talk about this apatite with unknown treatment - still believe this color is not natural.
There are enough labs outside - they should do their job!
As long as it isn't a simple cheat like a surface coating, even if it's treated it would be a pretty exceptional new thing. It's not like apatites haven't been subjected to a slew of radiation and heat treatments over the years, so if this were a common result we'd have seen it already. So who even knows.
This 185 ct. bracelet is listed as Mexican Apatite by an eBay dealer in India. I requested the treatment information from the dealer. I'm not going to hold my breath for a truthful answer . Sure looks a lot like the GSN material. Price is less than a buck per carat including the mounting.
My feeling is that no matter if it's a $120 piece sold by Deepak in India or a $10,000 piece sold by GSN here ,if it's being sold as natural red apatite and it's not, it is a ripoff. I asked Mr. Deepak if it might be some common yellow that has been treated and irradiated. I told him that there is no faceted red apatite that looks like his anywhere in the world on the internet. He seemed to be insulted to have anyone question his material. He says it is natural red apatite .He also stated that there are many gemstones that can't be found on the internet. He sent me photos of another rare stone that he sells that won't be found on the internet -golden fucsite (sic).
I have gamma irradiated Mexican apatite. It went just slightly, slightly greener than it was before (to be fair, a low dose relatovely speaking). There is nothing to say the stones in that bracelet aren't just glass with a random label slapped on. A big suite of faceted matching clean apatites that size in any color are unlikely to sell for that little. I doubt it has any relevance to the gsn material. Again, there isn't any known treatment to turn apatite red aside from your standard sharpie. Pinks, yes, via irradiation, but red is not a standard response. I am really curious what this is.
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