(via TNN, April 10, 2007) Neelima Mahajan writes:
Intel’s Andy Grove made paranoia fashionable way back in 1996. A few years back at a conference at the Wharton School of Business, Grove made a statement: “Snow melts at the edge,” he famously said. Those words struck a chord with Wharton professor George S Day, whose research is all about scanning the environment for potential opportunities and threats.
Says Day, "A snow bank always retreats at the edge because that’s where it is exposed the most.” It’s pretty much the same for organizations, he avers. There are enough weak signals at the periphery that most people choose to ignore. And that can make all the difference between success and failure.
Living on edge
But before we get into that, what does he mean by the ‘periphery’ or the edge? “It’s the blurred zone at the edge of the organization,” he says. To give an example, take an Indian company—say, one like Infosys—which is making moves in markets like Europe or the US. A weak signal from the periphery could mean that a sales manager in the US hears a rumor about a potential competitor in India.
But there are several problems with these signals. The first thing being that since they are weak anyway, it is hard for one to pick them up and understand their implications. Remember 9/11? After studying the tragedy, the 9/11 Commission said that they had all the data they needed to avert it, but they failed to connect the dots. “This is a consistent story with companies that miss an opportunity or are late to react to a threat,” says Day. “It’s not that they didn’t know about it, but that the information was scattered.”
The second problem is that weak signals are rarely brought to the notice of a leadership team. In his research with his colleague Paul J H Shoemaker which later culminated in a book titled Peripheral Vision, Day found that in almost all these cases, there were people in the organization or the network who knew about a past surprise, but the management didn’t know that they knew.” “The people didn’t realize that the management needed to know in the first place,” says Day.
Let’s take this American company that does a lot of work in advanced materials and has laboratories in Europe. Now Europe has regulation called Reduction of Hazardous Substances which impacts product design dramatically. “The European technologists knew all about this but just didn’t tell anyone in the US. When it came to design of a new generation project, they discovered that they do not comply with these new regulations,” says Day. They paid heavily for that: the company lost between $20 million to $30 million because they were late in picking up the signals.
Peripheral vision—or the lack of it—is an even more important issue in today’s globalized world. “Your potential competitors and markets are no longer regional or country level: they are global,” says Day. The communication revolution—especially the internet—also adds to this. “For instance, blogs are becoming a major source of customer information and complaints. With the development of new technology, markets are much more fragmentary and harder to understand,” says Day.
In a nutshell, peripheral vision is about scanning, interpreting and, most importantly, acting. Remember the low carb diet revolution in the US? The trend caught on like fire, lasted for a bit and then vanished. There were a clutch of companies that caught the trend early on and introduced products even before it had fully set in. But there were others who were less fortunate. “About 3000 new products were launched after the low carb diet started to decline in popularity. One particular company was ruined with losses in excess of $200 million. They did see the market early enough but they were late in capitalizing on it,” says Day.
The right filters
But clearly, just detecting weak signals is not enough. Because there are hundreds and millions of them, it is not worthwhile to focus on every blip, you see. “One of the things that people are concerned about is there is so much happening at the periphery that’s confusing and overwhelming,” says Day. “We don’t propose that you have to pay attention to each and every weak signal.”
Sure, it’s not easy: weak signals of threats and opportunities are pretty hard to distinguish in noise and clutter. “The best practice companies really look at the signals and then focus on a few key questions. They sculpt out where they are going to work,” says Day.
Take for instance, Medtronic, a company that makes pacemakers defibrillators. “It can always be at risk from drugs that could perform the same function as pacemakers. So they put together a taskforce of people that ask the same questions: what drug developments can impact our business? Once they get those weak signals, they can collect them, interpret them and be focused on them and then decide what to do,” says Day.
But for organizations that don’t have this capability, how can they go about developing it? It starts with the guys at the top, says Day. Vigilant leaders, as Day calls them, help put in place a warning system by encouraging people to talk to them.
Grove was very anxious that people in far-flung parts of the organization bring him their concerns. That’s not true of most other organizations,” says Day. Besides, they signal their commitment to this by continuously asking questions about the edge. They also encourage mavericks. “These are smart people who are not usually accepted by the organization because they are always challenging everything,” says Day.
Besides, by their very nature, such leaders are curious, imaginative and externally oriented. They go about seeking diverse viewpoints. “We as an industry spend too much time talking to mutual resources. So you go to the same trade meetings, read the same magazines. Vigilant leaders tend to have a much broader network and access to other parts of the environment,” says Day. “Such leaders are much better at figuring out uncertainity. They don’t avoid it. They work a lot at internalizing.”
Part of what such leaders do is that they provide a supportive climate. “They allow time for people to explore the periphery,” says Day. They do all sorts of things for that: like create a taskforce, create a small group to scan the environment, set up a council to look at the trends on a regular basis. So while a company like Medtronic creates taskforces focused on questions, others like IBM have a full time crows nest. In other words, some people sitting up in a crow’s nest high in a tree whose job is to continuously scan.
Yet other companies resort to scenario planning. All of us are familiar with Enron which was very successful in the late 1990s—and then went bust. Enron Federal Credit Union (Enron FCU is now called Star Federal Credit Union), which served Enron’s employees, was into scenario planning. Even before Enron’s collapse became imminent, they had explored several possible scenarios, including one called ‘starting over’, which meant that they would have to expand their member base. When the collapse happened, Enron FCU quickly sent out customized mails to reassure former and current Enron employees that their deposits were safe. Today Enron has vanished, yet Enron Credit Union is still going strong.
Clearly, the phrase ‘living on the edge’ seems to have acquired a whole new meaning.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Thinkers 50
(via Times of India, April 10, 2007)
Launched in 2001, the Thinkers 50 is the world’s first ranking of business and management gurus. In a run to 2007 rankings, TOI will exclusively run profiles of those in the fray. If you have an opinion on who should figure in the list, you can vote on http://www.thinkers50.com
Ranked 21 in last year’s Thinkers 50, Clayton Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. His research and writing interests focus on managing technological innovation and locating new markets for leading-edge technologies. He is the author of the management classic The Innovator’s Dilemma. The crux of his argument was that disruptive new technologies could cause even well-established companies to fall. “The criteria that managers use to make the decisions that keep their present businesses healthy make it impossible for them to do the right thing for their future,” he says. Part of the reason for this blinkered view is that companies tend to focus on listening closely to their ‘lead’ customers that will help them in their current business. Unfortunately, that prevents them from foreseeing future challenges. “If you only blindly listen to the leading customers of the current set that you listen to then you won’t see innovations that will take root amongst the other set,” says Christensen.
After the runaway success of his first book, Christensen followed it up with a second book titled The Innovator’s Solution which looked at the other side: how companies can create disruptions rather than being destroyed by them. His most recent book, titled Seeing What’s Next, says it is possible to predict which companies will win and which will lose in a specific situation. The best tribute to Chistensen’s work came from Inc Magazine which said, “Just as kids await the latest Harry Potter installment, so do business leaders look for Clayton M Chistensen’s next offering.”
Launched in 2001, the Thinkers 50 is the world’s first ranking of business and management gurus. In a run to 2007 rankings, TOI will exclusively run profiles of those in the fray. If you have an opinion on who should figure in the list, you can vote on http://www.thinkers50.com
Ranked 21 in last year’s Thinkers 50, Clayton Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. His research and writing interests focus on managing technological innovation and locating new markets for leading-edge technologies. He is the author of the management classic The Innovator’s Dilemma. The crux of his argument was that disruptive new technologies could cause even well-established companies to fall. “The criteria that managers use to make the decisions that keep their present businesses healthy make it impossible for them to do the right thing for their future,” he says. Part of the reason for this blinkered view is that companies tend to focus on listening closely to their ‘lead’ customers that will help them in their current business. Unfortunately, that prevents them from foreseeing future challenges. “If you only blindly listen to the leading customers of the current set that you listen to then you won’t see innovations that will take root amongst the other set,” says Christensen.
After the runaway success of his first book, Christensen followed it up with a second book titled The Innovator’s Solution which looked at the other side: how companies can create disruptions rather than being destroyed by them. His most recent book, titled Seeing What’s Next, says it is possible to predict which companies will win and which will lose in a specific situation. The best tribute to Chistensen’s work came from Inc Magazine which said, “Just as kids await the latest Harry Potter installment, so do business leaders look for Clayton M Chistensen’s next offering.”
A New Kind Of Love
Memorable quote (s) from the movie:
Steve Sherman (Paul Newman): Here's to all the bachelors in the world. May our tribe increase.
Harry (Marvin Kaplan): How?
Steve Sherman (Paul Newman): Automation.
Steve Sherman (Paul Newman): Here's to all the bachelors in the world. May our tribe increase.
Harry (Marvin Kaplan): How?
Steve Sherman (Paul Newman): Automation.
Angela Belcher: Bioengineer
(via Time, April 9, 2007) Michael D Lemonick writes:
Nano knowledge studying abalone shells led Belcher to batteries made of viruses. An M.I.T polymath uses genetic engineering to make a better car battery out of viruses.
The reason we aren’t all driving electric cars has little to do with a Detroit conspiracy. It’s that nobody has invented a lightweight, inexpensive battery that can store enough electricity to make such a vehicle practical.
If anyone can change that, it’s Angela Belcher. A materials scientist and bioengineer at M.I.T., Belcher, 49, won a MacArthur Foundation genius grant in 2004, and last fall Scientific American named her research leader of the year for her current project: creating an entirely new kind of battery, not by building it but by growing it. Working with several M.I.T colleagues, Belcher has engineered a virus, known as M13 bacteriophage, that latches onto and coats itself with bits of inorganic materials, including gold and cobalt oxide. That turns each long, tubular virus into what amounts to a minuscule length of wire. Coax these nanowires to line up, and you have the components of a battery that is far more compact and powerful than anything available.
If her battery works as a commercially viable product, that alone could qualify Belcher as a climate change hero, but her vision is green in other ways as well. Conventional batteries generate a lot of waste during manufacture, and they are a disposal nightmare. But a viral battery essentially grows itself, using water as a solvent, so there’s practically no waste. And since much of its relatively small bulk is organic, the battery is partly biodegradable.
Belcher has been tackling a whole new field of science every five years (so far, she has mastered materials science, biochemistry, molecular biology and electrical engineering). Considering her track record, the next thing she decides to study could well lead to yet another remarkable breakthrough.
Nano knowledge studying abalone shells led Belcher to batteries made of viruses. An M.I.T polymath uses genetic engineering to make a better car battery out of viruses.
The reason we aren’t all driving electric cars has little to do with a Detroit conspiracy. It’s that nobody has invented a lightweight, inexpensive battery that can store enough electricity to make such a vehicle practical.
If anyone can change that, it’s Angela Belcher. A materials scientist and bioengineer at M.I.T., Belcher, 49, won a MacArthur Foundation genius grant in 2004, and last fall Scientific American named her research leader of the year for her current project: creating an entirely new kind of battery, not by building it but by growing it. Working with several M.I.T colleagues, Belcher has engineered a virus, known as M13 bacteriophage, that latches onto and coats itself with bits of inorganic materials, including gold and cobalt oxide. That turns each long, tubular virus into what amounts to a minuscule length of wire. Coax these nanowires to line up, and you have the components of a battery that is far more compact and powerful than anything available.
If her battery works as a commercially viable product, that alone could qualify Belcher as a climate change hero, but her vision is green in other ways as well. Conventional batteries generate a lot of waste during manufacture, and they are a disposal nightmare. But a viral battery essentially grows itself, using water as a solvent, so there’s practically no waste. And since much of its relatively small bulk is organic, the battery is partly biodegradable.
Belcher has been tackling a whole new field of science every five years (so far, she has mastered materials science, biochemistry, molecular biology and electrical engineering). Considering her track record, the next thing she decides to study could well lead to yet another remarkable breakthrough.
The Gem Producing Potential Of Somaliland—A New Sri Lanka?
(via Gem & Jewellery News, Vol.8, No.4, September 1999) Judith Kinnaird writes:
My visit to Somaliland had not started well. I had arrived on an ECHO flight from Nairobi (EC Humanitarian Organization) and had landed in Hargeisa, the capital, along with about eight other people of assorted nationalities bound for a peace conference.
Unfortunately, the normal rota for the plane that day would have been for it to land in Berbera on the Gulf Coast, which was where my visa was waiting but, because of the conference delegates, that day it had come to the capital instead. A four hour delay then occurred at the airport whilst ‘Mr Fixit’, my mentor, was found. This gave me the opportunity to learn about the country from the various officials who felt it important to keep me company during my sojourn in the VIP lounge whilst visa formalities got sorted.
The discovery of gemstones in Somaliland and their subsequent extraction only began in 1990. The widespread distribution and broad range of gemstones available makes it all the more surprising that gemstones have come to light so recently. My visit to Somaliland had been arranged to consider the small scale mining potential in the country as part of an EC programme to investigate the sustainable exploitation of natural resources. The gemological potential may provide an important income generation in a country where many will earn only $10 per month, not necessarily because of their primitive state, but more as a consequence of a bruising civil war.
Difficulties
Visits to various gemstone producing areas proved quite difficult as many of them are only reached by tracks little better than the bed of dried up stream, resulting in bone-shaking journeys which might take five hours to do 50 miles. Also, the Ministry of Water and Minerals did not want me to visit any private sector producers without being accompanied by a person from the Ministry, and groups in the private sector showed considerable reluctance to accept a Ministry representative since most had not paid for a license for mineral working. Eventually, most of the initial problems were solved and I traveled extensively round the country, particularly in the north east from Sheikh to Berbera on the coast where the temperature was in excess of 40°C (and that was in the winter) and Borama in the west, which is the center for emerald production.
Numerous varieties
Once people knew that I was interested in gemstones everywhere I went I was inundated by collectors and traders who wanted to sell me their goods. Among more than forty different mineral species produced, were a variety of gemstones varying from emerald, ruby, sapphire, and aquamarine, to minerals like garnet and amethyst, some of which were of considerable size and excellent color. Other gems like phenakite, alexandrite and heliodor were reported though not seen, and it was unwise to place too reliance on local gem identification. This is not due to unscrupulous behavior on the part of most producers and traders, rather a lack of knowledge as they begin to learn to identify gemstones.
Thus of occurrences reported as tanzanite, one turned out to be of purple fluorite the other purple of vesuvianite. Similarly, one locality believed to produce emerald, whilst right in the middle of rich pegmatite belt, was found to contain bright green quartz colored by secondary copper minerals between the quartz crystals. Green epidote and diopside are frequently thought to be tourmaline or peridot.
One group told me they were working green garnet. Although the rocks were of the right composition for potential finds of green garnet, the mineral they thought was green garnet was largely epidote, although scapolite, green amphibole and orange hessonite garnets also occurred, and we did indeed succeed in finding one tiny green garnet. Despite the disappointment of sometimes having to tell people that the minerals they were mining were worthless, there were some localities with exciting potential. In one area, the mineral believed to be tourmaline was in fact epidote, although it was accompanied by blue zoisite which, if found in sufficiently large pieces could have some value.
In conversation with a very impressive lawyer in Hargeisa, I was told that gemstones are also being produced in the Bossaso area on the coast in the far northeast, which is consistent with the geology shown on the geological map of Somalia. He also maintained that the gemstones which are appearing from Garowe to the east have been robbed from ancient graves dating back as far as the civilizations of Egypt. He also believed that some of the gemstones referred to in the bible had their origin in Somaliland.
Diamonds
Unfortunately there is a widespread belief among the people of Somaliland that there is an abundance of diamonds in the country. This is based on the mis-identification of quartz by a few locals and traders. These men have ‘diamond testers’ which they believe distinguish diamonds from other stones on account of its hardness. The testers being used are the sort that are specifically designed to distinguish diamonds set in jewelry and were made to show a hardness of ten for quartz crystals, whilst some minerals were shown to have a hardness of anything up to 12. The commonly occurring concentrations of small quartz crystals are called ‘sugar diamonds’ by these traders.
On one occasion, following an afternoon studying an extensive outcrop of water clear rock crystal near the Dabail Weina (a locality from which 200 tons of piezo-electric quartz had been extracted from a 5m deep trench during 1977-78), my driver, myself and guide were arrested and taken to prison, because the locals had reported we had stolen their diamonds. Fortunately, a permit from the Ministry of Minerals, which stated that we were on government business was reluctantly accepted.
The miners
Some groups of gem producers gem producers comprise half-a-dozen men, while others are moderately well-organized with more than twenty workers. Typically all the groups are extracting gemstones from hard rock with the minimum of tools. In addition, one group near Heinweina had no camping equipment, yet they stayed on the mountain for four or five nights at a time because their aquamarine mine is 8 km from the village and more than 500 m up in rough mountainous terrain. All groups face the same problems of lack of equipment, lack of access to overseas markets, lack of capital to travel to foreign gem trade fairs, lack of any central display and exhibition center to attract the attention of the many foreign visitors to the country, lack of knowledge on relevant mining equipment and how to use it, and often the most basic problems of difficulty of identification of even the common minerals.
Buying gems
Gems for sale are not readily obtained, and it is necessary to become acquainted with producers on a personal basis to get good material, although the Somalis are currently in the process of setting up a gemological association in the capital Hargeisa. Once this association has been established it will form a focus for the collection and trading of gemstones and mineral specimens. I did visit one authorized dealer of gemstones in Hargeisa who buys stones from producers and says he also owns a gold prospect. He had a variety of minerals on display, most of which were of dubious quality. He also tried to persuade me to buy some mercury which he says is ‘dripping out of rocks’ in an unspecified locality. Later my mentor suggested that it is more likely from Russian missiles which are remnants of the war.
Among the more enterprising businessmen, one young man showed me more than a hundred Somalia gemstones cut in Ethiopia, for which he paid $1500. Among these stones were some extremely handsome dark purple amethysts, a large cabochon of orange opal, numerous small red garnets, some green chrysoberyl, colorless spinel or zircon, deep red ruby and an occasional sapphire, but no emerald. He said he intended to take these as a display collection to the Far East to generate interest in trading of raw uncut gemstones.
Important deposits
Amazingly, despite their long history, I was told that they have only had a written language in Somaliland since 1972. The country has a population of 1.1 million people, half of them nomadic pastoralists, and the main economy of the country is based on the export of around three million head of camels, cattle, sheep and goats from Berbera. The animals come from all over the region, including Ethiopia, making their way for hundreds of miles, grazing as they go. But agriculture cannot sustain the development of the country and if a legalized gemstone production can be established it will go some way to providing much needed foreign income.
If the continental configuration was reconstructed around 500 million years ago (the time when the Pan African pegmatites were formed, the source of many of the gemstones) then Sri Lanka and Madagascar, which at that time were part of African landmass, lie in the same geological belt of rocks that extend from Somaliland to southern Africa—the Mozambique Belt.
The diversity of gemstones that are coming to light suggest that some excellent material could become available and that with development Somaliland could be an important world producer.
My visit to Somaliland had not started well. I had arrived on an ECHO flight from Nairobi (EC Humanitarian Organization) and had landed in Hargeisa, the capital, along with about eight other people of assorted nationalities bound for a peace conference.
Unfortunately, the normal rota for the plane that day would have been for it to land in Berbera on the Gulf Coast, which was where my visa was waiting but, because of the conference delegates, that day it had come to the capital instead. A four hour delay then occurred at the airport whilst ‘Mr Fixit’, my mentor, was found. This gave me the opportunity to learn about the country from the various officials who felt it important to keep me company during my sojourn in the VIP lounge whilst visa formalities got sorted.
The discovery of gemstones in Somaliland and their subsequent extraction only began in 1990. The widespread distribution and broad range of gemstones available makes it all the more surprising that gemstones have come to light so recently. My visit to Somaliland had been arranged to consider the small scale mining potential in the country as part of an EC programme to investigate the sustainable exploitation of natural resources. The gemological potential may provide an important income generation in a country where many will earn only $10 per month, not necessarily because of their primitive state, but more as a consequence of a bruising civil war.
Difficulties
Visits to various gemstone producing areas proved quite difficult as many of them are only reached by tracks little better than the bed of dried up stream, resulting in bone-shaking journeys which might take five hours to do 50 miles. Also, the Ministry of Water and Minerals did not want me to visit any private sector producers without being accompanied by a person from the Ministry, and groups in the private sector showed considerable reluctance to accept a Ministry representative since most had not paid for a license for mineral working. Eventually, most of the initial problems were solved and I traveled extensively round the country, particularly in the north east from Sheikh to Berbera on the coast where the temperature was in excess of 40°C (and that was in the winter) and Borama in the west, which is the center for emerald production.
Numerous varieties
Once people knew that I was interested in gemstones everywhere I went I was inundated by collectors and traders who wanted to sell me their goods. Among more than forty different mineral species produced, were a variety of gemstones varying from emerald, ruby, sapphire, and aquamarine, to minerals like garnet and amethyst, some of which were of considerable size and excellent color. Other gems like phenakite, alexandrite and heliodor were reported though not seen, and it was unwise to place too reliance on local gem identification. This is not due to unscrupulous behavior on the part of most producers and traders, rather a lack of knowledge as they begin to learn to identify gemstones.
Thus of occurrences reported as tanzanite, one turned out to be of purple fluorite the other purple of vesuvianite. Similarly, one locality believed to produce emerald, whilst right in the middle of rich pegmatite belt, was found to contain bright green quartz colored by secondary copper minerals between the quartz crystals. Green epidote and diopside are frequently thought to be tourmaline or peridot.
One group told me they were working green garnet. Although the rocks were of the right composition for potential finds of green garnet, the mineral they thought was green garnet was largely epidote, although scapolite, green amphibole and orange hessonite garnets also occurred, and we did indeed succeed in finding one tiny green garnet. Despite the disappointment of sometimes having to tell people that the minerals they were mining were worthless, there were some localities with exciting potential. In one area, the mineral believed to be tourmaline was in fact epidote, although it was accompanied by blue zoisite which, if found in sufficiently large pieces could have some value.
In conversation with a very impressive lawyer in Hargeisa, I was told that gemstones are also being produced in the Bossaso area on the coast in the far northeast, which is consistent with the geology shown on the geological map of Somalia. He also maintained that the gemstones which are appearing from Garowe to the east have been robbed from ancient graves dating back as far as the civilizations of Egypt. He also believed that some of the gemstones referred to in the bible had their origin in Somaliland.
Diamonds
Unfortunately there is a widespread belief among the people of Somaliland that there is an abundance of diamonds in the country. This is based on the mis-identification of quartz by a few locals and traders. These men have ‘diamond testers’ which they believe distinguish diamonds from other stones on account of its hardness. The testers being used are the sort that are specifically designed to distinguish diamonds set in jewelry and were made to show a hardness of ten for quartz crystals, whilst some minerals were shown to have a hardness of anything up to 12. The commonly occurring concentrations of small quartz crystals are called ‘sugar diamonds’ by these traders.
On one occasion, following an afternoon studying an extensive outcrop of water clear rock crystal near the Dabail Weina (a locality from which 200 tons of piezo-electric quartz had been extracted from a 5m deep trench during 1977-78), my driver, myself and guide were arrested and taken to prison, because the locals had reported we had stolen their diamonds. Fortunately, a permit from the Ministry of Minerals, which stated that we were on government business was reluctantly accepted.
The miners
Some groups of gem producers gem producers comprise half-a-dozen men, while others are moderately well-organized with more than twenty workers. Typically all the groups are extracting gemstones from hard rock with the minimum of tools. In addition, one group near Heinweina had no camping equipment, yet they stayed on the mountain for four or five nights at a time because their aquamarine mine is 8 km from the village and more than 500 m up in rough mountainous terrain. All groups face the same problems of lack of equipment, lack of access to overseas markets, lack of capital to travel to foreign gem trade fairs, lack of any central display and exhibition center to attract the attention of the many foreign visitors to the country, lack of knowledge on relevant mining equipment and how to use it, and often the most basic problems of difficulty of identification of even the common minerals.
Buying gems
Gems for sale are not readily obtained, and it is necessary to become acquainted with producers on a personal basis to get good material, although the Somalis are currently in the process of setting up a gemological association in the capital Hargeisa. Once this association has been established it will form a focus for the collection and trading of gemstones and mineral specimens. I did visit one authorized dealer of gemstones in Hargeisa who buys stones from producers and says he also owns a gold prospect. He had a variety of minerals on display, most of which were of dubious quality. He also tried to persuade me to buy some mercury which he says is ‘dripping out of rocks’ in an unspecified locality. Later my mentor suggested that it is more likely from Russian missiles which are remnants of the war.
Among the more enterprising businessmen, one young man showed me more than a hundred Somalia gemstones cut in Ethiopia, for which he paid $1500. Among these stones were some extremely handsome dark purple amethysts, a large cabochon of orange opal, numerous small red garnets, some green chrysoberyl, colorless spinel or zircon, deep red ruby and an occasional sapphire, but no emerald. He said he intended to take these as a display collection to the Far East to generate interest in trading of raw uncut gemstones.
Important deposits
Amazingly, despite their long history, I was told that they have only had a written language in Somaliland since 1972. The country has a population of 1.1 million people, half of them nomadic pastoralists, and the main economy of the country is based on the export of around three million head of camels, cattle, sheep and goats from Berbera. The animals come from all over the region, including Ethiopia, making their way for hundreds of miles, grazing as they go. But agriculture cannot sustain the development of the country and if a legalized gemstone production can be established it will go some way to providing much needed foreign income.
If the continental configuration was reconstructed around 500 million years ago (the time when the Pan African pegmatites were formed, the source of many of the gemstones) then Sri Lanka and Madagascar, which at that time were part of African landmass, lie in the same geological belt of rocks that extend from Somaliland to southern Africa—the Mozambique Belt.
The diversity of gemstones that are coming to light suggest that some excellent material could become available and that with development Somaliland could be an important world producer.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
The Road To Hong Kong
Memorable quote (s) from the movie:
Harry Turner (Bing Crosby): Chester, I give you my solemn word. This time it's not dangerous.
Chester Babcock (Bob Hope): Not dangerous?
Harry Turner (Bing Crosby): No.
Chester Babcock (Bob Hope): That's what 'cha said when you shot me out of a cannon, when you dropped me in a tank with an octopus, when you had me wrestle a gorilla. It's not dangerous! I'm not goin'. I'm through. I've had it. So forget it, Charly!
Harry Turner (Bing Crosby): Chester, I give you my solemn word. This time it's not dangerous.
Chester Babcock (Bob Hope): Not dangerous?
Harry Turner (Bing Crosby): No.
Chester Babcock (Bob Hope): That's what 'cha said when you shot me out of a cannon, when you dropped me in a tank with an octopus, when you had me wrestle a gorilla. It's not dangerous! I'm not goin'. I'm through. I've had it. So forget it, Charly!
India: 5th Largest Consumer By 2025
(via Times News Network) Irshad Daftari writes:
The elephant has begun dancing and is now set to take wings. India’s much-touted middle-class will soon embark on a consuming spree that is set to make the country the fifth-largest consuming economy behind US, Japan, China and the UK by 2025.
According to a report by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) titled The Bird of Gold: The Rise of India’s Consumer Market, India is set for a consumption boom, with aggregate consumption (private and government consumption) increasing more than four times to Rs 70,00,000 crore (approximately $1.5 trillion) from Rs 15,00,000 crore currently.
Further, the report states, if purchasing power parity (PPP) was used as a benchmark India’s aggregate consumption will stand at $8.2 trillion, making it larger than the current US consumption at $7.8 trillion. A significant aspect of a broadly middle-class economy is that it fundamentally changes the political dynamics.
“The political power structure will change as it has happened all over the world when economies have become middle-class,” says Adil Zainulbhai, MD, McKinsey, India. For a 20-year forecast, MGI has assumed that land reforms and urban and rural infrastructure investments will continue, or at least not be rolled back.
Says Mr Zainulbhai, “Our studies show that it takes nearly 15 years for reforms to fundamentally change the economy. China, for instance, took off in the mid-90s after beginning reforms in the late 70s. Some of the heavy lifting in terms of reforms has already been done and it won’t require sweeping changes at this speed.”
Further, the middle-class, which has broadly been defined as households earning between Rs. 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per annum, will grow to 583 million from just 50 million today. To put that figure into perspective, the middle-class would form the third-largest country by itself in terms of population, and nearly twice the current population of the United States. The average household income will rise from Rs 113,744 in 2005 to Rs 318,896 in 2025, growing 5.3% annually.
While that might seem a pittance in dollar terms at just under $7600, it works out to nearly $40,000 in terms of purchasing power parity, comfortable by most standards. Nearly 291 million people will move out of the lowest consuming class, earning less than Rs 90,000 per annum, to a middle class lifestyle.
More info @
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_5th_largest_consumer_by_2025/articleshow/1999742.cms
The elephant has begun dancing and is now set to take wings. India’s much-touted middle-class will soon embark on a consuming spree that is set to make the country the fifth-largest consuming economy behind US, Japan, China and the UK by 2025.
According to a report by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) titled The Bird of Gold: The Rise of India’s Consumer Market, India is set for a consumption boom, with aggregate consumption (private and government consumption) increasing more than four times to Rs 70,00,000 crore (approximately $1.5 trillion) from Rs 15,00,000 crore currently.
Further, the report states, if purchasing power parity (PPP) was used as a benchmark India’s aggregate consumption will stand at $8.2 trillion, making it larger than the current US consumption at $7.8 trillion. A significant aspect of a broadly middle-class economy is that it fundamentally changes the political dynamics.
“The political power structure will change as it has happened all over the world when economies have become middle-class,” says Adil Zainulbhai, MD, McKinsey, India. For a 20-year forecast, MGI has assumed that land reforms and urban and rural infrastructure investments will continue, or at least not be rolled back.
Says Mr Zainulbhai, “Our studies show that it takes nearly 15 years for reforms to fundamentally change the economy. China, for instance, took off in the mid-90s after beginning reforms in the late 70s. Some of the heavy lifting in terms of reforms has already been done and it won’t require sweeping changes at this speed.”
Further, the middle-class, which has broadly been defined as households earning between Rs. 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per annum, will grow to 583 million from just 50 million today. To put that figure into perspective, the middle-class would form the third-largest country by itself in terms of population, and nearly twice the current population of the United States. The average household income will rise from Rs 113,744 in 2005 to Rs 318,896 in 2025, growing 5.3% annually.
While that might seem a pittance in dollar terms at just under $7600, it works out to nearly $40,000 in terms of purchasing power parity, comfortable by most standards. Nearly 291 million people will move out of the lowest consuming class, earning less than Rs 90,000 per annum, to a middle class lifestyle.
More info @
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_5th_largest_consumer_by_2025/articleshow/1999742.cms
Gem Scams—Where Are They Leading?
(via Gem & Jewellery News, Vol.9, No.1, December 1999) Harry Levy writes:
Since man first discovered the beauty of gems and pearls, and found he could find favor in the eyes of women by giving these as gifts, he has been faking it. He has been filling in the cracks in stones, oiling and staining them, bleaching pearls and waxing turquoise and lapis, anything to improve their appearance.
The discovery of glass was god send to such people and much ancient jewelry is found to be adorned with glass. These were cut to resemble gems and many were undoubtedly sold as gems to the rich and famous. It seems inconceivable that any royal person would have bought a piece of cut glass, but I have seen royal collections of loose stones containing many glass imitations.
When one buys a beautiful Georgian antique piece of jewelry everyone in the trade assumes that the gems could be foiled. Pale stones are cut in closed settings over a layer of colored silver foil to intensify the colors of the stones. I wonder how many of the original owners knew or where found that the stones were foiled and not valuable as they seemed at the time.
Traffic lights
Selling glass as gems is still practiced today. One amusing story (although not so amusing to the victims) is that often one sees smashed traffic lights in gem producing and gem cutting centers. The police eventually discovered why they were being smashed when they caught people selling broken pieces as ‘rough emeralds and rubies’ to the tourists.
Gem scams take many forms. The most obvious one is to sell a fake—a piece of glass or plastic—as real gem. A less obvious method is to sell a synthetic stone (one that has all the chemical and physical characteristics of its natural counterpart) as a natural gem, or to sell a genuine stone at a highly inflated price or to try to sell it as another type of stone. In this last category yellow quartz was marketed as ‘topaz’ confusing the unwary—the practice became so common that the trade introduced the term ‘topaz-citrine’ as being more truthful than simply ‘topaz’ for the yellow quartz. The correct description is yellow quartz or citrine, but never topaz with or without qualifying terms. To sell genuine topaz, the trade now uses terms such as ‘real topaz’ or ‘precious topaz’.
Iolite was sold as ‘water sapphire’ making the unwary think they were buying a variety of blue sapphire—not realizing they were buying a much softer and cheaper stone. Rubellite is used for a variety of red tourmaline to confuse the unsuspecting into thinking that is a variety of ruby. White stones have been sold as diamantine, CZ-diamond, diamonair and so on, again making the buyer think he is buying a type of diamond.
Synthetics
Colored synthetics are often sold as genuine gems, one of the most popular being the synthetic color change corundum imitating alexandrite. We often get calls from jewelers claiming that their client has a large alexandrite and they think it might be worth a lot of money. A good 1 carat alexandrite can fetch up to $10000 in the trade, and stones of 5 carat and above can run into hundred of thousands of dollars. So when we are told that the stone in question is large and very clean, we ask if it is 12mm or 15mm round, or 16 x 12 oval or octagonal. They are surprised when we can quote the size over the phone without seeing the stone. This is because the stones are synthetic and are cut in the calibrated ring sizes—worth but a few pounds. Their customer often insists that they are real stones bought in the markets in Alexandria.
Synthetic alexandrite is now available originating from Russia and being offered for sale in Sri Lanka and Brazil as a genuine alexandrite. Many in the trade are fooled by such stones as the color change and appearance is far more convincing than the synthetic corundum counterpart.
Mixed parcels
Itinerant dealers coming to London from the Far and Exotic East, show parcels of rubies and sapphires. Whilst the majority is real, the best few stones in the parcel are often synthetics. One does not know whether the dealers are doping the parcels or if they are duped themselves when they acquired the goods. Such stones circulating in the upper echelons of the trade are hard to spot, as the rubies are heated to reduce the visible zoning and curved lines, while sapphires are cut from the top parts of the boules to give striation of color and patches of blue resembling genuine Ceylon stones.
Usually one thinks that synthetics will generally be used as a substitute for expensive stones. Several years ago a dealer from the sub-continent came into my office with a parcel of cheap rubies calibrated into 9 x 7mm and 10 x 8mm ovals. They were reddish pink color, somewhat opaque and roughly polished. One often sees such goods, but only up to size of 7 x 5mm. The stones seemed cheap for their size. It was perhaps experience and instinct that made me look again before buying. I then realized that they were synthetic rubies; they had been heated and cooled rapidly to produce a cracking effect and then tumbled to rub the surface and produce the effect one sees in cheap Burma rubies. The seller claimed he knew nothing about the origin of the stones and had been given them by an ‘uncle’ to sell in Europe.
One can see other dealers coming in from that part of the world with cheap native cut stones. Sometimes there may be a parcel of, say, larger cut peridots. The price looks tempting until one looks again to discover that they are peridot color glass—native cut to resemble natural stones.
Genuine stones at inflated prices
The most common gem scam nowadays is to sell genuine stones, but at highly inflated prices. The stones may be in transparent sealed boxes, or loose, nearly always accompanied by a certificate. The certificate purports to come from a gemological institution or a government body with titles such as the “The State Gem Corporation’. The certificate will give accurate measurements of the stone, its weight and a statement to the effect that it is a real or genuine stone such as a ruby or sapphire, and sometimes the origin of the stone. Always these statements will be true. In some cases there will be a grading with words such as ‘fine’, ‘high quality’, etc. Potential buyers are targeted by researching credit card companies to find high spenders. They are approached through telephone calls or enticing literature offering a portfolio of stones with copies of the certificates, literature about the uniqueness and beauty of gemstones and graphs showing steep growth of prices over the past few years. These are often accompanied by promises, usually verbal, of buy-back opportunities as the value of the stones increases.
To add insult to injury, such buyers will still in their state of euphoria at the bargains they have purchased, and again approached by their sellers, with good news that they have found a buyer for their investment earning them a very healthy profit. The only condition is that the new buyer needs another stone to complete the portfolio before the deal can be completed. They promise to try to locate such a stone as they sold one to another investor in his portfolio and hope they can persuade him to sell. They of course come back with good news that he can purchase this stone and this stage of the negotiations the ‘profit’ shown on his portfolio will more than pay for the additional stone, but after paying for taking delivery the deal is never realized. But the consolation to the investor is that they shown him his stones are now worth much more than he paid for them originally and in a short time they will find another buyer and by then his stones will be worth even more.
Shamefaced
Whenever such stones are offered for sale by the ‘investors’ they say that they think they overpaid for the stone but would like to recoup their money or the best they can get. They are often prepared to take a small loss. Invariably such stones seem to be overvalued by a factor of ten, i.e. a $1000 stone is worth $100 in the trade. The owners are often shamefaced to state the true price they paid, but are shocked when they learn the true value. There is often an element of disbelief at the price they are told and it is only by being sent to several offices and shops that they actually realize the extent to which they have been overcharged.
All such stones I have seen would not be called ‘fine’ and are often difficult to sell even it at the correct market value. They usually are stones which have some defect, be it even in size or shape that makes them unsuitable for jewelry.
At the other end of the scale, captive audiences, such as those on cruise, are told that they have won a gemstone—usually a garnet or topaz. It is again accompanied by a certificate extolling its beauty and value. To make the win truly memorable they will have to pay a small amount—usually tens of pounds or dollars—to have the stone set in a ring or pendant. The ‘sting’ is in the amount they pay for mounting and setting of this stone; they could in many cases buy a similar article in their local High Street jewelers at a much cheaper price.
Moissanite
The latest masquerader is moissanite. No suggestion is made that those who are selling it are involved in any sort of scam. The producers, while they control the rough, have set their price and the prices their agents should charge and as long as these conditions prevail there will be a stability—and possibly increases—in the price. You may remember that when CZ first appeared
Large department stores often set aside a whole section for the sale of CZ jewelry. The stones often came with certificates, and grading reports were issued for the larger stones. They sold in the hundreds rather than the ten of dollars or pounds, whereas today a 6.5mm CZ (one carat diamond spread) sells for a few pence in the trade.
There are already rumors that moissanite is being manufactured in Eastern Europe and China where patents are hard to enforce. As the supply increases, so the prices will tumble. But in the case of moissanite the scam will come not from the producers or the jewelers—they will disclose it for what it is, a synthetic stone—but from the spouse or lover. With all the media publicity he can at last buy a ring with a stone that few can distinguish from a diamond. He will present his beloved the ‘diamond’ ring he always wanted to give her but could not afford. It will be years later, well into next millennium, when this jewelry will come back on the market by widowed spouses (or as family heirlooms) as authentic diamond jewelry. By then, hopefully, all jewelers will be able to spot a moissanite as being different from a diamond. They could then be accused, as the harbingers of bad tidings, of having cheated the original buyer by selling him a synthetic moissanite as a real diamond. The real culprit would not the actual jeweler in such a case but would bring the trade into disrepute.
I have not covered all the scams but jewelers and tourists who seek bargains from the gem cutting centers are often surprised that what they have bought may not sell at a profit back home. And this brings me round to the disclosure dispute—are we all committing a scam when we do not make the appropriate disclosure when selling a gemstone—by withholding information we are letting the buyer believe that the stone he is purchasing is not what it appears to be?
Disclosure
A thought that has bothered me for many years, as I have debated and presided over meetings devoted to disclosure of gemstone treatments and enhancements, that I as a dealer do not treat—sorry, handle—all my stones in the same way. My expensive emerald and ruby is carefully handled, placed in a special safe, unwrapped carefully, perhaps insured separately, while my small third-rate emeralds and rubies are put together with no cotton wool so that they rub and scratch each other. I have no second thoughts if I leave them out of the safe, for after all they are worth a few pence or at most a few pounds each. Yet when it comes to disclosure I have to apply the same rules to them as I apply to my truly precious gems. There is no disclosure problem with costume jewelry and this lower popular end of the trade now has many resemblances to the costume jewelry trade—people buy it for themselves, they are not given to them as gifts. They are worn a few times then thrown to the back of the drawer and forgotten—almost for ever. Should the stones in such jewelry be subjected to the same strictures of disclosure?
I do not know how I can draw a demarcation line but with the proliferation of jewelry set with cheap gemstones, often treated or synthetic, and the sale of such jewelry moving away from the traditional outlets such as jewelry shops into supermarkets and market stalls, should they become exempt from the need for disclosure? After all, who really cares if a 2mm round emerald selling in a ring for a few pounds has been oiled or resined or infilled with a colored substitute? Yet the trade can suffer prosecution every time this article is sold if the full facts have not been disclosed.
What for the future?
I mentioned the millennium a little earlier. It would be interesting if the trade could set up a panel to come up with their projection of the jewelry trade in, say, a hundred years time. With the advent of synthetics and ever improving treatments, I think a large part of jewelry will be sold for its appearance rather than its value. The traditional jeweler will move up market and hopefully those who buy the cheap items will develop a taste and move on to the more expensive individual jewelry where they will want to know exactly what they are buying.
Since man first discovered the beauty of gems and pearls, and found he could find favor in the eyes of women by giving these as gifts, he has been faking it. He has been filling in the cracks in stones, oiling and staining them, bleaching pearls and waxing turquoise and lapis, anything to improve their appearance.
The discovery of glass was god send to such people and much ancient jewelry is found to be adorned with glass. These were cut to resemble gems and many were undoubtedly sold as gems to the rich and famous. It seems inconceivable that any royal person would have bought a piece of cut glass, but I have seen royal collections of loose stones containing many glass imitations.
When one buys a beautiful Georgian antique piece of jewelry everyone in the trade assumes that the gems could be foiled. Pale stones are cut in closed settings over a layer of colored silver foil to intensify the colors of the stones. I wonder how many of the original owners knew or where found that the stones were foiled and not valuable as they seemed at the time.
Traffic lights
Selling glass as gems is still practiced today. One amusing story (although not so amusing to the victims) is that often one sees smashed traffic lights in gem producing and gem cutting centers. The police eventually discovered why they were being smashed when they caught people selling broken pieces as ‘rough emeralds and rubies’ to the tourists.
Gem scams take many forms. The most obvious one is to sell a fake—a piece of glass or plastic—as real gem. A less obvious method is to sell a synthetic stone (one that has all the chemical and physical characteristics of its natural counterpart) as a natural gem, or to sell a genuine stone at a highly inflated price or to try to sell it as another type of stone. In this last category yellow quartz was marketed as ‘topaz’ confusing the unwary—the practice became so common that the trade introduced the term ‘topaz-citrine’ as being more truthful than simply ‘topaz’ for the yellow quartz. The correct description is yellow quartz or citrine, but never topaz with or without qualifying terms. To sell genuine topaz, the trade now uses terms such as ‘real topaz’ or ‘precious topaz’.
Iolite was sold as ‘water sapphire’ making the unwary think they were buying a variety of blue sapphire—not realizing they were buying a much softer and cheaper stone. Rubellite is used for a variety of red tourmaline to confuse the unsuspecting into thinking that is a variety of ruby. White stones have been sold as diamantine, CZ-diamond, diamonair and so on, again making the buyer think he is buying a type of diamond.
Synthetics
Colored synthetics are often sold as genuine gems, one of the most popular being the synthetic color change corundum imitating alexandrite. We often get calls from jewelers claiming that their client has a large alexandrite and they think it might be worth a lot of money. A good 1 carat alexandrite can fetch up to $10000 in the trade, and stones of 5 carat and above can run into hundred of thousands of dollars. So when we are told that the stone in question is large and very clean, we ask if it is 12mm or 15mm round, or 16 x 12 oval or octagonal. They are surprised when we can quote the size over the phone without seeing the stone. This is because the stones are synthetic and are cut in the calibrated ring sizes—worth but a few pounds. Their customer often insists that they are real stones bought in the markets in Alexandria.
Synthetic alexandrite is now available originating from Russia and being offered for sale in Sri Lanka and Brazil as a genuine alexandrite. Many in the trade are fooled by such stones as the color change and appearance is far more convincing than the synthetic corundum counterpart.
Mixed parcels
Itinerant dealers coming to London from the Far and Exotic East, show parcels of rubies and sapphires. Whilst the majority is real, the best few stones in the parcel are often synthetics. One does not know whether the dealers are doping the parcels or if they are duped themselves when they acquired the goods. Such stones circulating in the upper echelons of the trade are hard to spot, as the rubies are heated to reduce the visible zoning and curved lines, while sapphires are cut from the top parts of the boules to give striation of color and patches of blue resembling genuine Ceylon stones.
Usually one thinks that synthetics will generally be used as a substitute for expensive stones. Several years ago a dealer from the sub-continent came into my office with a parcel of cheap rubies calibrated into 9 x 7mm and 10 x 8mm ovals. They were reddish pink color, somewhat opaque and roughly polished. One often sees such goods, but only up to size of 7 x 5mm. The stones seemed cheap for their size. It was perhaps experience and instinct that made me look again before buying. I then realized that they were synthetic rubies; they had been heated and cooled rapidly to produce a cracking effect and then tumbled to rub the surface and produce the effect one sees in cheap Burma rubies. The seller claimed he knew nothing about the origin of the stones and had been given them by an ‘uncle’ to sell in Europe.
One can see other dealers coming in from that part of the world with cheap native cut stones. Sometimes there may be a parcel of, say, larger cut peridots. The price looks tempting until one looks again to discover that they are peridot color glass—native cut to resemble natural stones.
Genuine stones at inflated prices
The most common gem scam nowadays is to sell genuine stones, but at highly inflated prices. The stones may be in transparent sealed boxes, or loose, nearly always accompanied by a certificate. The certificate purports to come from a gemological institution or a government body with titles such as the “The State Gem Corporation’. The certificate will give accurate measurements of the stone, its weight and a statement to the effect that it is a real or genuine stone such as a ruby or sapphire, and sometimes the origin of the stone. Always these statements will be true. In some cases there will be a grading with words such as ‘fine’, ‘high quality’, etc. Potential buyers are targeted by researching credit card companies to find high spenders. They are approached through telephone calls or enticing literature offering a portfolio of stones with copies of the certificates, literature about the uniqueness and beauty of gemstones and graphs showing steep growth of prices over the past few years. These are often accompanied by promises, usually verbal, of buy-back opportunities as the value of the stones increases.
To add insult to injury, such buyers will still in their state of euphoria at the bargains they have purchased, and again approached by their sellers, with good news that they have found a buyer for their investment earning them a very healthy profit. The only condition is that the new buyer needs another stone to complete the portfolio before the deal can be completed. They promise to try to locate such a stone as they sold one to another investor in his portfolio and hope they can persuade him to sell. They of course come back with good news that he can purchase this stone and this stage of the negotiations the ‘profit’ shown on his portfolio will more than pay for the additional stone, but after paying for taking delivery the deal is never realized. But the consolation to the investor is that they shown him his stones are now worth much more than he paid for them originally and in a short time they will find another buyer and by then his stones will be worth even more.
Shamefaced
Whenever such stones are offered for sale by the ‘investors’ they say that they think they overpaid for the stone but would like to recoup their money or the best they can get. They are often prepared to take a small loss. Invariably such stones seem to be overvalued by a factor of ten, i.e. a $1000 stone is worth $100 in the trade. The owners are often shamefaced to state the true price they paid, but are shocked when they learn the true value. There is often an element of disbelief at the price they are told and it is only by being sent to several offices and shops that they actually realize the extent to which they have been overcharged.
All such stones I have seen would not be called ‘fine’ and are often difficult to sell even it at the correct market value. They usually are stones which have some defect, be it even in size or shape that makes them unsuitable for jewelry.
At the other end of the scale, captive audiences, such as those on cruise, are told that they have won a gemstone—usually a garnet or topaz. It is again accompanied by a certificate extolling its beauty and value. To make the win truly memorable they will have to pay a small amount—usually tens of pounds or dollars—to have the stone set in a ring or pendant. The ‘sting’ is in the amount they pay for mounting and setting of this stone; they could in many cases buy a similar article in their local High Street jewelers at a much cheaper price.
Moissanite
The latest masquerader is moissanite. No suggestion is made that those who are selling it are involved in any sort of scam. The producers, while they control the rough, have set their price and the prices their agents should charge and as long as these conditions prevail there will be a stability—and possibly increases—in the price. You may remember that when CZ first appeared
Large department stores often set aside a whole section for the sale of CZ jewelry. The stones often came with certificates, and grading reports were issued for the larger stones. They sold in the hundreds rather than the ten of dollars or pounds, whereas today a 6.5mm CZ (one carat diamond spread) sells for a few pence in the trade.
There are already rumors that moissanite is being manufactured in Eastern Europe and China where patents are hard to enforce. As the supply increases, so the prices will tumble. But in the case of moissanite the scam will come not from the producers or the jewelers—they will disclose it for what it is, a synthetic stone—but from the spouse or lover. With all the media publicity he can at last buy a ring with a stone that few can distinguish from a diamond. He will present his beloved the ‘diamond’ ring he always wanted to give her but could not afford. It will be years later, well into next millennium, when this jewelry will come back on the market by widowed spouses (or as family heirlooms) as authentic diamond jewelry. By then, hopefully, all jewelers will be able to spot a moissanite as being different from a diamond. They could then be accused, as the harbingers of bad tidings, of having cheated the original buyer by selling him a synthetic moissanite as a real diamond. The real culprit would not the actual jeweler in such a case but would bring the trade into disrepute.
I have not covered all the scams but jewelers and tourists who seek bargains from the gem cutting centers are often surprised that what they have bought may not sell at a profit back home. And this brings me round to the disclosure dispute—are we all committing a scam when we do not make the appropriate disclosure when selling a gemstone—by withholding information we are letting the buyer believe that the stone he is purchasing is not what it appears to be?
Disclosure
A thought that has bothered me for many years, as I have debated and presided over meetings devoted to disclosure of gemstone treatments and enhancements, that I as a dealer do not treat—sorry, handle—all my stones in the same way. My expensive emerald and ruby is carefully handled, placed in a special safe, unwrapped carefully, perhaps insured separately, while my small third-rate emeralds and rubies are put together with no cotton wool so that they rub and scratch each other. I have no second thoughts if I leave them out of the safe, for after all they are worth a few pence or at most a few pounds each. Yet when it comes to disclosure I have to apply the same rules to them as I apply to my truly precious gems. There is no disclosure problem with costume jewelry and this lower popular end of the trade now has many resemblances to the costume jewelry trade—people buy it for themselves, they are not given to them as gifts. They are worn a few times then thrown to the back of the drawer and forgotten—almost for ever. Should the stones in such jewelry be subjected to the same strictures of disclosure?
I do not know how I can draw a demarcation line but with the proliferation of jewelry set with cheap gemstones, often treated or synthetic, and the sale of such jewelry moving away from the traditional outlets such as jewelry shops into supermarkets and market stalls, should they become exempt from the need for disclosure? After all, who really cares if a 2mm round emerald selling in a ring for a few pounds has been oiled or resined or infilled with a colored substitute? Yet the trade can suffer prosecution every time this article is sold if the full facts have not been disclosed.
What for the future?
I mentioned the millennium a little earlier. It would be interesting if the trade could set up a panel to come up with their projection of the jewelry trade in, say, a hundred years time. With the advent of synthetics and ever improving treatments, I think a large part of jewelry will be sold for its appearance rather than its value. The traditional jeweler will move up market and hopefully those who buy the cheap items will develop a taste and move on to the more expensive individual jewelry where they will want to know exactly what they are buying.
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