Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Jacob nodded his head up and down several times, but went away unmoved. When I saw him next he brought out of his pocket a crimson bottle-stopper of no ordinary size, and after pledging me to strict secrecy—confided to me that no king or emperor in the world possessed a finer ruby than that which he then held in his hand. For the time was several months later and poor Jacob was in a mental home where they were treating him very kindly. But he never recovered from the result of his shock when he discovered that he, the infallible Jacob W., had been the victim of his own faulty judgment and this five thousand pound ruby was laboratory grown.
There is a footnote to manufactured rubies: manufactured alexandrites, which are a variety of chrysoberyl, first discovered in 1833. Alexandrites are found in the Ural mountains and were given their name to celebrate the coming-of-age of the young Tsar Alexander II. When faceted and polished they are translucent and lustrous, but they are distinguished from all other gems by the intriguing way in which their blue or dark green daylight color changes into raspberry red in artificial light. (Footnote: Alexandrites are also produced in Ceylon,but not such good ones as in the Urals. For a long time the Ceylon gem dealers thought they were green sapphires until a specimen was consigned to London where it was tested by experts. The Ceylon Observer of January 11th, 1887, has an account of an alexandrite of immense size, 1876 carats—being a carat for almost every year of the date. Its owner refused 10000 rupees for it and it was eventually cut into small pieces).
Good alexandrites of any considerable size are extremely rare and fanciers are willing to pay high prices for really fine specimens. It was I who, more or less unwittingly, was responsible for the introduction of synthetic alexandrites to the world’s markets. The idea would never have occurred to me ordinarily, for most of my career has been spent with real gems and not with imitations and artificial stones. But there used to come to my office in Hatton Garden every month or so an analytical chemist, an exiled Russian resident in Paris, who specialized in the manufacture of high-grade scientific rubies. If I never bought anything from him it was not his fault, for he was an excellent salesman for one who had divided most of his life between laboratory and classroom.
Now I often regretted never being able to reward with a small order the pleasant half-hours I used to enjoy with this scholarly and cultured man. One day when he was unusually anxious to book an order, I pointed to a small alexandrite lying on my work table.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘It is a compatriot of yours,’ I said, ‘but unlike you, it is a turncoat.’ Then I explained to him the peculiar property of the stone.
‘Show me,’ said he, so I took him into a dark corner, lit a wax vesta, and like an unfailing miracle it was red stone and now lay in my hand and not a green stone.
‘Very intriguing,’ he said.
‘Now if you could only turn our scientific alexandrites,’ I suggested, more than half in jest. ‘Why, you could book me for a bushel of them.’
‘I shall have a good try,’ he said soberly, and said no more about it. I had completely forgotten the incident when three of four months later he turned up and without ado laid a small parcel of stones on the table. It did not take long to discover that he had succeeded in what I had thought to be impossible. But I was more surprised still when he quoted me a price per carat extremely moderate. I bought all he had with him, and subsequently arranged to take his entire output. It was my idea to corner the market; but alas for such hopes, secrets of that kind are hard to keep, and within the year others were turning out scientific alexandrites in such quantities that it became unprofitable to handle them in Europe.
I managed, however, to arouse a wide interest in these ‘funny’ stones in China and Japan, and the quantity these two markets absorbed was amazing. While it lasted I had no cause to complain. There was, and I believe still is, a shop in Hong Kong kept by two Chinese brothers where I frequently met a number of prominent Cantonese, both Government officials connected with Dr Sun Yat Sen’s administration and also not a few military officers of higher rank.
Several of these officers were, as the Americans say, ‘tickled to death’ with alexandrites, the stones that could change sides as effectively as any Chinese brigand general. All of them bought these scientific alexandrite novelties of me; not single specimens, but by the handful. Among these friendly customers was a close-cropped military man who one day, not so many years later, would acquire a news value as great as that of the Austrian house painter’s or the Swedish cinema star’s. His name was Chiang Kai Shek.
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