Robert Genis writes:
www.preciousgemstones.com
As many know, if a gem dealer or jeweler buys properly in the estate market, they can reap a profit margin typically unheard of in a normal gemstone business. It can be a wonderful source of revenue that can be similar to winning the lottery. However, if a mistake is made, it can put a large dent in your cash flow and can haunt you for years.Gem dealer Ralph Esmerian is considered an art collector extraordinaire and a gem dealer’s gem dealer. He spoke about his views on the estate market and the gemstone industry.
Robert Genis: How would you describe the ideal estate buying situation?
Ralph Esmerian: “In a perfect world, you get an invitation to buy from an estate and you are the first one to look through the goods at the bank vault. Hopefully, the client was a prestigious older person who loved jewelry and colored gemstones. This is the best-case scenario and you can probably guess the goods are as they were represented. Not always, but the odds are on your side. Barring this very unusual event, you must really protect yourself.”
RG: How would you describe the estate market today?
RE: “The thrill of buying estate colored gemstone jewelry is gone. The amount of really good fakes is at an all time high. The old days of buying unenhanced or untreated goods are gone.”
RG: Are you saying the science of deception is at an all time high?
RE: “The science of treating stones to improve them has increased dramatically in the last 20 years. The classic diamond story is the General Electric story. They found off-white diamonds and treated them so they were white. The GIA could not detect these stones. The GIA asked them how they were doing it. They refused to reveal their formula and were not forthcoming.Unlike the art market, where there are books of every famous artist’s paintings, the gemstone industry has no database. As a matter of fact, the auction catalogs are often used to deceive. Anyone can look through auction catalogs and recreate or “knock- off” the piece and make it look old. Jewelers and dealers have gotten really good at it. They have figured out how to reproduce the mounting and recut the stones to make them look old. Sometimes this recreation is obvious and sometimes it is not. Therefore, everything needs to be checked.”
RG; Have you ever made a mistake buying in the estate business?
RE: “All dealers have been cheated buying in the estate market. I once bought a ruby cabochon around 1965-1970. It was a beautiful stone and I thought it was a straight deal. It wasn’t until a much later date that I submitted the stone to a lab only to find out the stone had been heated. I was amazed to learn the stone had been messed with because I bought it such along time ago. This is a treacherous business.”
RG: Who is behind the estate business deception? Is it privates or people in the trade?
RE: “My guess is 90% of all estates come to me from other dealers. Of course, they always come with a great story about how they bought it from an important estate. Sometimes I look at the goods and simply pass because I suspect something is wrong. The vast majority of people doing the deception are from the Far East. They have mastered platinum design and recutting stones to make them look old. There are also a couple of houses in London that do excellent work recreating old pieces. They sell the pieces as modern and do not attempt to deceive. However, after the jewelry has been on the market for 6 months to a couple of years, they are often purposefully sold as old pieces, which they are not. Occasionally, you see also really good fakes from South America.”
RG: So it is not the privates who own the jewelry who are ruining the estate market?
RE: “It is not generally the privates that have messed up the estate market. It is dealers trying to take advantage of other dealers who are responsible. Of course, they are simply motivated by greed and money. For example, the emerald market: It was not the wearing of the stones by privates that messed up the emerald market. It was the treaters who filled the goods with plastic resin that caused the prices of these goods to decrease by 50% or more. Everyone says it is the fault of the people at the mines for treating emerald. In fact, people were treating these goods in locations all over the world. We have to admit that we did it to ourselves.”
RG: Are you buying many Kashmir sapphires in the estate market?
RE: “Kashmirs are becoming rarer and rarer all the time. They are becoming almost impossible to buy. The very best Kashmirs were mined years ago. The new material does not have the cornflower blue look of the older material top Kashmirs. Today's production looks more like Ceylon sapphires.”
RG: Are you buying many Alexandrites in the estate market?
RE: “One of the most difficult stones to obtain remains the old Russian alexandrite. If you find a 5-6 carat Russian alexandrite it is a rare and expensive stone. The vast majority of these stones are quickly bought and sold to the Far Eastern markets. Plus, in the last 30 years, great deal of synthetics were produced and sold. Most of what you see today are Sri Lankan stones and small Brazilian alexandrites.”
RG: Do you ever see colored diamonds in the estate markets?
RE: “Most important colored diamonds go directly from estates to auction. However, when you see them from an important estate, you can figure they are legitimate. In the last century there were major families that collected colored diamonds in California and Texas. You can find yellows, greens and blues. Interestingly, Europe and the Far East never really collected colored diamonds. In the last 30 years, when the rest of the world entered these markets this drove the price of these goods into the stratosphere.”
RG: Which laboratories do you use today when confirming your estate purchases?
RE: “In the good old days, you could use your eyes to buy merchandise. Now you need independent grading reports from major laboratories before you purchase an estate piece. The labs have the equipment to detect these treatments that you can no longer see. For example, the new fracture-filling in ruby is very difficult to detect in the field. Today you cannot buy without the expertise of a major gemological laboratory. I utilize the AGL for colored gemstones and the GIA for diamonds.”
No comments:
Post a Comment