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 gem industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
To have been actively engaged over a period of years in the gem trade and yet never to have met with tourmalines is something not to be proud of. It was in this period of my life that I dealt for once in tourmalines, jargoons, marcasite and the other lesser fry of the gem world. Perhaps if I had stuck to them I should have made more money out of them than I ever did out of pearls and that noble three, emeralds, rubies and sapphires.
Tourmalines, a composition of silica with varying quantities of oxides of magnesium and aluminum, present such a variety of beautiful colors and shades that they come as a revelation to the tyro. The crystals are translucent, take on a good polish and are often of surprising luster. The colorless variety is known as achroite and the green as andalusite, from its occurrence in Andalusian Spain.
Tourmalines remind me of a little hunchbacked German, a working jeweler in the West End, who had been persuaded by a patron to start trading in gems on his own. Despite all the credit this patron gave him, the little man was soon in deep water, for the pitfalls in the game are many and various. Instead of telling his benefactor (who was his biggest creditor) of his troubles, for the man really had intended to befriend him, he finally ran away to Paris. It was there and not in London that I met him again.
Handicapped by his fear of the police (unfounded, as it happened), he asked me to market his goods for him, but I had no clients for tourmalines in Paris, although I was able to recommend him to a broker who in the end did help him to part with his stones at a ruinous discount. For he was in a hurry to realize; the man in a hurry always bargains to sell. So far he was on the right side of the fence. But he now took it into his head to justify himself in the eyes of his benefactor, to which end he bought a large number of beautifully engraved but worthless mining shares from a bucket-shop keeper on the run, and sent them back to London under cover of a piteous note to say that he had been speculating not wisely but too well.
The big man in London, unfortunately for him, saw through the trick at once and was justly incensed. He put Scotland Yard on the track and that was the end of another little man.
There is a semi-precious stone, attractive in its own right, much fancied by those who value its resemblance to diamonds. This is the jargoon, or more properly the zircon. The zircon occurs in a greater variety of colors than any other gem. Besides the white kind, it is found brown, yellow, blue, pink, red and green. The red variety is called jacinth or hyacinth. There is a much esteemed peacock-blue zircon which is very rare indeed. Examples of it are called ‘specimen stones’ and command a good price in the market.
As for the white zircons, the jargoons, they have a very fair resemblance to diamonds, for this is a hard stone and often of a good brilliance. Very often it is called the Matura diamond, after the district in Ceylon where it is obtained. But one peculiarity of the stone is that when exposed to heat, or even to strong sunlight, it is apt to deteriorate in color, and may indeed fade badly.
To simulate diamonds, jargoons have been cut ‘full cut’ like diamonds; that is, with fifty-eight facets. Another mineral which ‘more in the past than today’ has been used in jewelry of the cheaper sort to obtain the diamond effect is that called marcasite (pyrites). Like the rose-cut diamonds they were intended to represent, they also were cut rose fashion; that is, with triangular facets. For there is an absolute system and logic in the way stones are faceted. Types and individuals demand special cutting, whether it be in the number of facets, the shape of the facets or their arrangement.
In my journeyings to and fro from Scotland I saw many jeweler’s shop windows crammed with trinkets in which were set stones of even lower status than those name above, by some considered so common that they should not be mentioned in the same breath as the distinguished company of gems. But they suited my state and status at that time of my life, and this is the place if anywhere for them in my private cavalcade of gems.
One, the cairngorm, however, does make most attractive settings and can look very effective. It is one of the several crystalline forms of silica. Other prominent members of the family of crystalline silicas are the rock crystal and the citrine. You will remember that the non-crystalline members of the family of silica are the opal and the chalcedony, which shows that very minute differences in the molecular structure of a substance make all the difference to its appearance and its value in the market. Of course, if the eyes of Cleopatra had been just the merest trifle crossed, that would have made all the difference in the world, too.
Cairngorms are found plentifully in Scotland and Cornwall. They are therefore, unlike many gems, native gems of Britain. They occur much to the benefit of local lapidaries and the delight of tourists, who are ever on the lookout for something that can be picked up ‘cheap’. Many a lady wears a cairngorm proudly because it reminds her of her honeymoon or some other sentimental occasion. It is quite pretty enough, too, to sustain an affection of that kind.
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