Gabi Tolkowsky writes:
We’re in a time of big changes. There have been so many discoveries; we have to stop for reflection. There is a lack of young people cutting and there is a disappearance of master cutters, who are not being replaced fast enough. Times are not easy, so younger people are taking fewer risks. They don’t jump in without thinking about it first. But we will have new technology and marketing that will be available to a new generation.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Burma’s Jade Trail
2007: I think Hpakan will remain the same for the next 500 + years.
(via Gemological Digest, Vol.2, No.4, 1989) Bertil Lintner writes:
Abstract
There are few areas in the world which offer as much fascination to the gemologist as Upper Burma. Throughout history this region has been off limits to outsiders. This situation was merely perpetuated with the coming-to-power of the xenophobic Ne Win regime in 1962. Since that time eyewitness accounts have been few and far between. This is indeed unfortunate, for Upper Burma contains two of the planet’s premier gem deposits: ruby/sapphire mines at Mogok and the world’s only jadeite deposits of consequence near Mogaung.
The following article is based on the author’s lengthy journey through Burma’s Kachin State. He gives a fascinating account of the jade trade, describing the often romantic political and legal complexities surrounding the marketing and distribution of the gem known to Chinese as “the stone of heaven.”
There may not be many places in Southeast Asia where people are prepared to pay US$100 for a bottle of Hennessy cognac or French champagne, $10 for a pint of beer, $3 for a bowl of noodle soup, and over $130 for a pair of running shoes from South Korea. But exorbitant prices seem to matter little at Hpakan in northern Burma, where some people are said to have become overnight millionaires by accidentally unearthing a big green boulder while digging latrines outside their houses.
Described as a mini “Hong Kong” by many visitors, Hpakan, the “jade capital” of Burma’s Kachin State, is reputed to have a much wider and even more exclusive variety of contraband goods than the famous night market in Mandalay. Perfumes from Paris, American cigarettes, tinned New Zealand butter, Australian cheddar and German pressure cookers—anything and everything is available at freewheeling Hpakan.
Thousands of fortune seekers flock to the jade mines every year, ranging from affluent Chinese laopans, or bosses, from Mandalay, Rangoon, Bangkok and Hong Kong, to teenagers and people in their early twenties, all with dreams of striking it rich.
“It’s a very special atmosphere there. The gambling fever affects everyone and people live in perpetual presence,” said one young Kachin student who had spent his summer holiday searching for jade at Hpakan:
“Anything goes. Young boys and girls meet and build huts in the forest, where they stay and dig together. Even married people seem to forget their marital ties as soon as they have crossed the Uru Hka river.”
The jade diggers usually fall into two categories. They are either seasonal migrants—farmers, workers, students, and government employees—or full-time professionals.
Officially, the Burmese government allows jade mining only at three places: Hpakan itself, and at the neighboring villages of Waje Maw and Sanchyoi. There, the work is carried out by government-employed diggers who receive a monthly salary plus a 10-20% commission on any high quality jade they manage to find. That jade is later sold to international buyers at the annual government-organized extravaganza at the Inya Lake Hotel in Rangoon.
But, given the vast amounts of money in circulation, it is hardly surprising that the laopans, and even private diggers, can bribe the local officials who are more than eager to get their share of Hpakan’s fortunes. It is even said that big Hong Kong-based jade companies have their own, secret representatives at Hpakan to supervise the work, organize the buying, and hire agents for transporting the boulders out from the mining areas.
Local people with experience in jade mining told this correspondent that Burmese Army officers go looking for ‘illegal diggers—and even shoot them if they cannot pay the demanded fees:
“If the people killed have only a small amount, the officers keep it for themselves. But if they have a lot of jade, it’s difficult to hide and so the army people have to hand it over to the government. That jade also ends up at the Inya Lake Hotel,” charged one source from Hpakan.
Corruption in Burma—a country which virtually lives off smuggling and black market trade—is by no means confined to Hpakan, but the situation there is aggravated by the immense wealth of the place, and the fact that some major jade syndicates are reputed to be connected with drug smuggling rings. Several big traders are said to bring jade out of Hpakan—and local hard currencies, such as opium and heroin, in to finance the purchase of jade at the mines.
Like most other towns in Kachin State, Hpakan is supplied by convoys of lorries (F.E.E.R, 28 May 1987) which move with tight security because of fear of ambushes which are frequently launched by the rebel Kachin Independence Army (KIA). These convoys carry daily necessities, arms and ammunition for the Burmese Army, and, for a fee, various kinds of contraband, according to Hpakan souces.
The rampant graft and corruption at Hpakan could be the reason why army units are deployed there on a rotational basis. One battalion of government troops never stays more than six months in the area—enough time for an officer to make a fortune, but not too long to let rivalry erupt between him and his colleagues, who are waiting for their turn of duty at the jade mines.
However, disputes between army officers reportedly do occur every now and then. The most serious clash in recent years erupted between some officers from the Myitkyina-based 29th battalion, which was stationed at Hpakan for six months during 1985, and the then commander of the northern command of the Burmese Army, Brig Gen Lazum Kam Hpang. The latter, a Kachin himself, had severely reprimanded the officers from the 29th battalion for alleged maltreatment of Kachin civilians in the jade mines area, even threatening to punish them. It all ended in a shoot out at a coffee shop in Myitkyina on November 16, 1985; Brig Gen Lazum Kam Hpang was fatally wounded and died in the hospital shortly afterwards.
At first, the local authorities put the blame on the Kachin rebels in the KIA, but when no substantial evidence could be presented to support that allegation, the whole story was quickly hushed up, and it went unreported in the government controlled Burmese media. Army deployment in the jade mining region is heavy, but nevertheless confined to Hpakan town, and the government controlled jade mines of Waje Maw and Sanchyoi. In addition, a company size contingent is always based at the Lung Hkang junction, where the road to Hpakan branches off to Kamaing in the Hukawng Valley. The surrounding hills and the countryside—where most jade mines are located—including the famous mines at Tawmaw north of Hpakan, have long been controlled by the KIA.
The Kachin rebels first occupied parts of the jade mine area in 1963, and tax on the trade as well as yearly licenses, or so-called digging tickets have since been a main source of income for the KIA. The rebel army maintains a number of checkpoints around the mines—including one on the main Lung Hkang Kamaing motor road—where a 10-30% tax is levied on the jade which merchants bring out from the area.
A Kachin rebel taxation office told this correspondent that yearly takings, including tickets at the KIA toll gates around Hpakan amount to Kyats 8-10 million—but he added that only 25% of the jade may pass through the rebel checkpoints:
“The most precious pieces are smuggled out, and the total value of the jade extracted from the Hpakan area could be as much as Kyats 100 million a year,” the officer said.
The real profit, however, is made when the jade reaches the Thai border, usually the first destination outside Burma on the long smuggling route from Burma’s Kachin State to Hong Kong, the world’s main marketing center for jade. Prices at the Thai border are said to be five to ten times as high as in Hpakan, and sometimes even more if the jade is of unusually good quality. But before the jade comes that far it has to pass through many stages, involving more bribes to government officials, and additional tax to other rebel groups along the way through Burma to Thailand.
The clandestine representatives of the international jade syndicate at Hpakan—who are not in a position to evade bribes, but who seldom pay tax to the KIA—are reported to bring most of their cut and uncut jade boulders down the Uru Hka river, in a westerly direction towards Homalin on the Chindwin river. In this way, they bypass the KIA’s checkpoints on the Kamaing road and south of Hpakan.
Usually, blocks of jade are tied to rafts or small country boats for the downriver journey to Homalin. There is only one Burmese Army outpost along this route—at Nawngpu-awng—and bribes ease the way here as well as in Hpakan. From Homalin, the jade continues by steamer down the Chindwin, or hidden in paddy baskets and under heaps of straw on bullock carts, until it reaches the railhead of Monywa. From there, rail and lorries take over for the onward trip to Mandalay, Taunggyi, and even as far south as Rangoon and Moulmein, depending on the final destination of the cargo.
Along the way to Monywa, a small percentage of the jade is diverted to India via the Tamu-Moreh border market in the Manipur State. This border crossing point is a main center for the contraband trade between Burma and India, but the demand for jade is not high among the Indians; the customers on that side are the 40000 or so ethnic Chinese who live in Calcutta, and a few other places in eastern and northeastern India.
An elaborate network of local agents, who usually have connections among themselves even if they work for different syndicates, are said to be responsible for the various stages along the routes. One group may take care of the Hpakan-Mandalay section, another would be in charge of the stretch from Mandalay to Taunggyi, Rangoon or Moulmein, and a third party would ensure that the goods are delivered across the border in Thailand, or sometimes by boat from Moulmein to Penang in Malaysia, or even on to Singapore.
During the last leg of the journey, before reaching the Thai border, some traders have to pay transit fees to the various insurgent groups there—the Karen rebel army if the goods are going south to Bangkok, the Karenni army if the destination is Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai via Loikaw in Kayah State.
But these minor routes would be used by smaller traders only; most of the border between Thailand and Burma’s Shan State is controlled either by remnants of the Nationalist Chinese Koumintang, or by Chang Shee-fu (alias Khun Sa) and his powerful private army. Both groups are dominated by ethnic Chinese businessmen who run their own jade syndicates—and mercenary armies across the border with Burma.
The jade trade, which has brought a fair amount of the present wealth and well being to Chiang Mai, is seen by some observers as potentially even more lucrative than the closely connected drug trade, which sometimes is carried out by the same syndicates. That is becoming more important now when international police agencies in Thailand are stepping up their drives against narcotics smugglers. Unlike heroin, jade becomes a legal commodity once it has crossed the international frontier.
Running the gauntlet into Thailand is becoming tougher, and while most heroin refineries still appear to be located near the Thai-Burmese border, increased police supervision in Thailand is seen by many observers as the reason why more and more drugs now make a U-turn near the frontier, back into Burma and along new ones through that country.
New smuggling routes exist along which both jade and heroin pass through central Burma—where international police control is none existent—down to the Tenasserim coast. Well informed sources assert that it is not difficult to bring any kind of goods through Burma—if one can afford to pay the price.
Small traders reportedly deposit their goods with the policemen who check the passenger baggage on the Myitkyina-Mandalay and Mandalay-Rangoon trains; it is also possible to leave the contraband with the train driver, these sources say.
The fee here would not be more than a few thousand Kyats, or less than 10% of value of the goods, which can be heroin, raw opium or jade. Bigger traders, though, need more sophisticated solutions to the problem. By bribing government officials, they can obtain letters of introduction stating that they are intelligence agents on duty, and that their luggage, therefore, should not be checked. People issuing these letters range from local army officers to government ministers, the sources say, and the fee depends on the authority of the official in question and the solvency of the individual trader. Other certificates can be more cryptic, stating that the bearer should not be recruited as a porter to carry arms and ammunition for government troops—a common practice whenever the Burmese Army launches operations against country’s many insurgent groups—which indirectly means that he is an important person. Bearers of such certificates have assured this correspondent that their vehicles are never searched by the police or the army.
But now it seems that recent events along the Sino-Kachin border may change all this and drastically alter the entire network of underground trade through Burma down to Thailand, and to Malaysia and Singapore. As a result of the rapid modernization drive launched by Deng Xiaoping in China, baggy trousers and old Mao jackets are losing their former popularity—and jade is back again. According to one source along the Sino-Kachin border:
“Previously, the only decoration Chinese women could wear were red Mao badges. Now, also the Chinese in mainland China want to set off the beauty of their women as the overseas Chinese do. Jade is undergoing a renaissance in the People’s Republic.”
Buyers from Peking and Shanghai recently have come down to the border between China and Burma’s Kachin State, and they are reported to be gradually improving their knowledge, almost matching the Chinese jade merchants of pre-revolutionary days. Most of this jade seems to be earmarked for the domestic market, while some gemstones, jewelry and carvings are sold in Hong Kong via the many emporia the Chinese government maintains in the still-British territory.
The exact amount of jade now being sent to China is difficult to determine, and as far as the value goes, it may not exceed five percent of the total output at Hpakan. But it is increasing steadily, since it is a much easier route than down to Thailand.
This correspondent saw convoys of jade-laden elephants and mules winding their way up the steep mountain passes along the Sino-Kachin frontier, and there was little doubt that the routes of the former jade caravans to Tengchong in Yunnan Province were open again. The most frequently used routes lead from Hpakan to the KIA-controlled border settlements of Hkala Yang, Pa Jau and Loije. A smaller amount reaches China via Kambaiti Pass to the north, which is controlled by the Burmese Communist Party (BCP). All three aforementioned gates are in Kachin State—but most jade goes from the center at Mandalay via Lashio to Juili north of the Shweli border river in order to avoid the rebel tax gates.
The difficulty in bringing profitable goods other than jade to China could explain why many traders still prefer the much longer and more risky journey down to Thailand. One source also pointed out that the traders do not want to work only; they also want amusement:
“In Thailand, there are massage parlors and nightclubs; in China there is nothing like that yet. It’s more fun to spend your money in Chiang Mai than in Juili or Tengchong.”
But even when taking this into consideration, it is nevertheless not far-fetched to assume that the direct routes to China are destined to become more important, especially when Hong Kong returns to Chinese hands in 1997. Whether that will severely affect the jade trade with Thailand remains to be seen, but, without doubt, that route will inevitably lose much of its present significance. If that should prove to be the case, the drug syndicates which are based along the Thai-Burmese border may also be affected. Without jade as a supplementary, and complementary, commodity, the heroin trade will become less profitable and more difficult to continue effectively, some observers suggest.
“Jade is popular in China now. But neither the Chinese authorities, nor the Kachin rebels who tax the trade, would allow heroin to come along with it. The Chinese welcome green jade, but not the white powder.”
Gemologists distinguish two types of jade: jadeite and nephrite. The origin of the word jade is believed to be the expression piedra de ijada of the Spanish Conquistadores, which means stone of the side or flank. Wearing jade next to one’s kidney or liver was believed to provide healing benefits. Similarly, nephros is the Greek word for kidney, and this led to the term nephrite.
One difference between these two species is that jadeite is a vitreous and shiny stone, while nephrite has a more oily or waxy finish. Nephrite is also called green stone in New Zealand, where the native Maoris carved it for fish hooks, knives, needles and war clubs—and for religious objects, or tikis, which were worn for decoration and spiritual protection.
The Aztecs and Mayans of Central America revered the beauty of both jadeite and nephrite, and vast quantities were taken away by the Conquistadores when they occupied these ancient empires. Fair quality jadeite has been found in Guatemala, but the location of the original Mayan Mines still remains a mystery. Small quantities of jadeite have also been found in the USSR, Japan, and in California in the US.
But, it is the Kachin Hills of northern Burma which for centuries have been the world’s only supplier of top quality jadeite. The discovery that fine green jadeite occurred in the Kachin Hills is said to have been made accidentally by a Yannanese petty trader in the 13th century. The story runs that when about to return home from a trading trip to northern Burma, he picked up a stone to balance the load of his mule. It proved to be jade of excellent quality, and subsequently a large party returned to procure more. These merchants were unsuccessful, however, as no local people were able to tell them where this kind of stone could be found.
Several more missions came from China, but they were equally unsuccessful. The keenness of the Chinese to locate the jade deposits was not difficult to understand; nephrite jade had been known and appreciated in China from early times in history. And to the Chinese, jade was not just another stone—protective qualities were also attributed to it. Many Chinese children, even today, wear a kind of jade padlock around their necks to protect them from diseases. One type of Chinese nephrite is known as mutton fat, having a yellowish white color. Another variety is called chicken bone and it has a slightly lighter hue. Nephrite most commonly occurs in a green color. But even the finest nephrite is no match for the emerald green jadeite which the Yunnanese trader had brought back from the Kachin Hills.
The final discovery of the jade mines came after 1784, when centuries of hostilities between the traditional enemies, Burma and China, were terminated. Adventurous traders from Yunnan once again entered the Kachin Hills in search of the green stones. This time they managed to find them; big, precious boulders along the banks of the Uru Hka river, near the village of Hpakan, northwest of Mogaung. From the end of the 18th century onwards, the jade trade with Yunnan expanded rapidly. The only hindrances were rough roads and a climate in which malaria flourished. A Chinese temple at Amarapura near Mandalay in northern Burma has a long list of the names of more than 6000 traders who perished while searching for jade in the Kachin Hills—and the roll-call includes only the names of well known traders for whom funeral rites were held. The actual total would be many times that number, had all the small traders and adventurers been included.
The original rulers of the jade mine area were the Shan sawbwas of Mogaung—a place—a name which is actually a Burmese corruption of the Shan Mong Kawng. But pressed between the politically more powerful Burmans to the south—and the warlike Kachins, who pushed down from the north, the sawbwas of Mogaung lost their independence soon after the trade with China had been established.
The state was subjugated by the Burmese Kings of Ava in 1796, and the mines came within the domains of a number of Kachin chiefs, or duwas. The most powerful of these was the Kansi duwas, who drew considerable royalties on the jade trade—apart from the revenue collected by the Burmese governor in Mogaung. The Burmese Kings quickly became aware of the importance of the jade trade; already by 1806 a Burmese Collectorate with an armed force was located in Mogaung.
Although there is no jade at Mogaung itself, the town soon became the headquarters of the jade trade in Burma. Few merchants themselves actually went up to the mines. Instead, they hired local people to dig for them, and the jade brought down to Mogaung where it was bought by the Chinese and taxed by the Burmese authorities. From Mogaung, caravans—often protected by Panthay, or Muslim Chinese, mercenaries from Yunnan—wound their way over the high mountain passes east of the Irrawaddy, across the frontier into China. The demand for jadeite was universal throughout China, and the Hpakan mines were the only source of this superior type and quality.
The trade with China has since been interrupted only four times. The first cut-off occurred during the First Opium War between Britain and China in the 1840’s, when Cantonese traders no longer could come to buy the stones at Kunming in Yunnan. When the war was over, the trade commenced again, but it soon came to a new halt when the Panthay Muslims rebelled in 1857. The unrest in Yunnan, which prevailed for many years, prompted some traders to negotiate with the Burmese Kings, and a new route was opened by sea from Canton, up the Irrawaddy to Mandalay.
From then on the trade picked up and, before long, the mountain routes via Yunnan came into use once more. It continued uninterrupted until World War Two and the Japanese invasions of China and Burma in the 1940s. The fourth time the trade was stopped was, naturally, after the communist revolution in China in 1949. This brought the trade with China to a standstill, which at first appeared to be permanent. Hong Kong then emerged as the world’s leader center, with Chiang Mai in northern Thailand as the most important nexus along the long and dangerous route from Hpakan. By then, the mines had been nationalized by the Burmese government following the military takeover in 1962—at least in theory.
The jade-belt roughly stretches from Hweka north of Indawgyi Lake to Singkaling Hkamti on the Chindwin river, with the main mining area suited between Hpakan and Tawmaw near the Uru Kha river. Jade is also found at a few other places in Kachin State, notably at Mandawng and Shangaw east of the Nmai Hka river—but the quality there is said to be inferior to that of Hkapan-Tawmaw area.
A trained eye is said to be able to distinguish one type of jade from another, and even say from which mine the stone has been brought. But not until it has been cut. Through millions of years of exposure to weathering, jade boulders oxidize, developing a gray to brown exterior skin. Such a skin is largely opaque, hiding the color and quality of the material underneath. Thus no one is able to say exactly what the quality of a piece is until this skin is removed by grinding, or the boulder opened by sawing. It may be the highly prized, translucent emerald green known in the trade as imperial jade, sometimes worth thousands of dollars per carat, or it could be of an opaque white color worth practically nothing. Part of the excitement surrounding the jade business is exactly this: buying the unskinned rough is very much of a gamble. Traders can make a big profit if lucky, or lose their shirts if the quality is low.
This gambling connected with the purchase of rough jadeite could be one of several reasons why jade became so popular with the Chinese—and why the communists later frowned upon it after the 1949 revolution. Now, when China is rediscovering many of its former traditions, the traders from Peking and Shanghai appear to have settled for a compromise: jade, minus the gamble.
“They want to cut the stones before they buy them,” said one local jade expert on the Sino-Kachin border.
Hong Kong is usually the final destination of most jadeite which comes out from Burma via Thailand. The British colony entered the international jade market when the Japanese occupied the former trading centers of Peking, Shanghai and Canton during World War Two—and when the communists took over China in 1949. These events forced two waves of jade merchants to flee to Hong Kong, which soon became the world’s main marketplace for cut jade. Today, either they or their descendants are among the most prominent of the 40 members of the Hong Kong Jade & Stone Manufacturer’s Association.
Despite being carried out by people in business suits and neckties, Hong Kong’s jade auctions are still steeped in ancient Chinese ritual. Whereas a Western auctioneer is all noise and movement, his Cantonese counterpart will stand still and wait for customers to come up to him and offer their bids, using the legendary finger sign bidding technique. The prospective buyer will privately touch the fingers of the auctioneer under a piece of cloth, and just whisper if he is indicating hundreds or thousands of Hong Kong dollars. Keeping all the secret bids in his head, the auctioneer will finally clasp the fingers of the bidder who has offered the most suitable price.
A jade deal has been made.
(via Gemological Digest, Vol.2, No.4, 1989) Bertil Lintner writes:
Abstract
There are few areas in the world which offer as much fascination to the gemologist as Upper Burma. Throughout history this region has been off limits to outsiders. This situation was merely perpetuated with the coming-to-power of the xenophobic Ne Win regime in 1962. Since that time eyewitness accounts have been few and far between. This is indeed unfortunate, for Upper Burma contains two of the planet’s premier gem deposits: ruby/sapphire mines at Mogok and the world’s only jadeite deposits of consequence near Mogaung.
The following article is based on the author’s lengthy journey through Burma’s Kachin State. He gives a fascinating account of the jade trade, describing the often romantic political and legal complexities surrounding the marketing and distribution of the gem known to Chinese as “the stone of heaven.”
There may not be many places in Southeast Asia where people are prepared to pay US$100 for a bottle of Hennessy cognac or French champagne, $10 for a pint of beer, $3 for a bowl of noodle soup, and over $130 for a pair of running shoes from South Korea. But exorbitant prices seem to matter little at Hpakan in northern Burma, where some people are said to have become overnight millionaires by accidentally unearthing a big green boulder while digging latrines outside their houses.
Described as a mini “Hong Kong” by many visitors, Hpakan, the “jade capital” of Burma’s Kachin State, is reputed to have a much wider and even more exclusive variety of contraband goods than the famous night market in Mandalay. Perfumes from Paris, American cigarettes, tinned New Zealand butter, Australian cheddar and German pressure cookers—anything and everything is available at freewheeling Hpakan.
Thousands of fortune seekers flock to the jade mines every year, ranging from affluent Chinese laopans, or bosses, from Mandalay, Rangoon, Bangkok and Hong Kong, to teenagers and people in their early twenties, all with dreams of striking it rich.
“It’s a very special atmosphere there. The gambling fever affects everyone and people live in perpetual presence,” said one young Kachin student who had spent his summer holiday searching for jade at Hpakan:
“Anything goes. Young boys and girls meet and build huts in the forest, where they stay and dig together. Even married people seem to forget their marital ties as soon as they have crossed the Uru Hka river.”
The jade diggers usually fall into two categories. They are either seasonal migrants—farmers, workers, students, and government employees—or full-time professionals.
Officially, the Burmese government allows jade mining only at three places: Hpakan itself, and at the neighboring villages of Waje Maw and Sanchyoi. There, the work is carried out by government-employed diggers who receive a monthly salary plus a 10-20% commission on any high quality jade they manage to find. That jade is later sold to international buyers at the annual government-organized extravaganza at the Inya Lake Hotel in Rangoon.
But, given the vast amounts of money in circulation, it is hardly surprising that the laopans, and even private diggers, can bribe the local officials who are more than eager to get their share of Hpakan’s fortunes. It is even said that big Hong Kong-based jade companies have their own, secret representatives at Hpakan to supervise the work, organize the buying, and hire agents for transporting the boulders out from the mining areas.
Local people with experience in jade mining told this correspondent that Burmese Army officers go looking for ‘illegal diggers—and even shoot them if they cannot pay the demanded fees:
“If the people killed have only a small amount, the officers keep it for themselves. But if they have a lot of jade, it’s difficult to hide and so the army people have to hand it over to the government. That jade also ends up at the Inya Lake Hotel,” charged one source from Hpakan.
Corruption in Burma—a country which virtually lives off smuggling and black market trade—is by no means confined to Hpakan, but the situation there is aggravated by the immense wealth of the place, and the fact that some major jade syndicates are reputed to be connected with drug smuggling rings. Several big traders are said to bring jade out of Hpakan—and local hard currencies, such as opium and heroin, in to finance the purchase of jade at the mines.
Like most other towns in Kachin State, Hpakan is supplied by convoys of lorries (F.E.E.R, 28 May 1987) which move with tight security because of fear of ambushes which are frequently launched by the rebel Kachin Independence Army (KIA). These convoys carry daily necessities, arms and ammunition for the Burmese Army, and, for a fee, various kinds of contraband, according to Hpakan souces.
The rampant graft and corruption at Hpakan could be the reason why army units are deployed there on a rotational basis. One battalion of government troops never stays more than six months in the area—enough time for an officer to make a fortune, but not too long to let rivalry erupt between him and his colleagues, who are waiting for their turn of duty at the jade mines.
However, disputes between army officers reportedly do occur every now and then. The most serious clash in recent years erupted between some officers from the Myitkyina-based 29th battalion, which was stationed at Hpakan for six months during 1985, and the then commander of the northern command of the Burmese Army, Brig Gen Lazum Kam Hpang. The latter, a Kachin himself, had severely reprimanded the officers from the 29th battalion for alleged maltreatment of Kachin civilians in the jade mines area, even threatening to punish them. It all ended in a shoot out at a coffee shop in Myitkyina on November 16, 1985; Brig Gen Lazum Kam Hpang was fatally wounded and died in the hospital shortly afterwards.
At first, the local authorities put the blame on the Kachin rebels in the KIA, but when no substantial evidence could be presented to support that allegation, the whole story was quickly hushed up, and it went unreported in the government controlled Burmese media. Army deployment in the jade mining region is heavy, but nevertheless confined to Hpakan town, and the government controlled jade mines of Waje Maw and Sanchyoi. In addition, a company size contingent is always based at the Lung Hkang junction, where the road to Hpakan branches off to Kamaing in the Hukawng Valley. The surrounding hills and the countryside—where most jade mines are located—including the famous mines at Tawmaw north of Hpakan, have long been controlled by the KIA.
The Kachin rebels first occupied parts of the jade mine area in 1963, and tax on the trade as well as yearly licenses, or so-called digging tickets have since been a main source of income for the KIA. The rebel army maintains a number of checkpoints around the mines—including one on the main Lung Hkang Kamaing motor road—where a 10-30% tax is levied on the jade which merchants bring out from the area.
A Kachin rebel taxation office told this correspondent that yearly takings, including tickets at the KIA toll gates around Hpakan amount to Kyats 8-10 million—but he added that only 25% of the jade may pass through the rebel checkpoints:
“The most precious pieces are smuggled out, and the total value of the jade extracted from the Hpakan area could be as much as Kyats 100 million a year,” the officer said.
The real profit, however, is made when the jade reaches the Thai border, usually the first destination outside Burma on the long smuggling route from Burma’s Kachin State to Hong Kong, the world’s main marketing center for jade. Prices at the Thai border are said to be five to ten times as high as in Hpakan, and sometimes even more if the jade is of unusually good quality. But before the jade comes that far it has to pass through many stages, involving more bribes to government officials, and additional tax to other rebel groups along the way through Burma to Thailand.
The clandestine representatives of the international jade syndicate at Hpakan—who are not in a position to evade bribes, but who seldom pay tax to the KIA—are reported to bring most of their cut and uncut jade boulders down the Uru Hka river, in a westerly direction towards Homalin on the Chindwin river. In this way, they bypass the KIA’s checkpoints on the Kamaing road and south of Hpakan.
Usually, blocks of jade are tied to rafts or small country boats for the downriver journey to Homalin. There is only one Burmese Army outpost along this route—at Nawngpu-awng—and bribes ease the way here as well as in Hpakan. From Homalin, the jade continues by steamer down the Chindwin, or hidden in paddy baskets and under heaps of straw on bullock carts, until it reaches the railhead of Monywa. From there, rail and lorries take over for the onward trip to Mandalay, Taunggyi, and even as far south as Rangoon and Moulmein, depending on the final destination of the cargo.
Along the way to Monywa, a small percentage of the jade is diverted to India via the Tamu-Moreh border market in the Manipur State. This border crossing point is a main center for the contraband trade between Burma and India, but the demand for jade is not high among the Indians; the customers on that side are the 40000 or so ethnic Chinese who live in Calcutta, and a few other places in eastern and northeastern India.
An elaborate network of local agents, who usually have connections among themselves even if they work for different syndicates, are said to be responsible for the various stages along the routes. One group may take care of the Hpakan-Mandalay section, another would be in charge of the stretch from Mandalay to Taunggyi, Rangoon or Moulmein, and a third party would ensure that the goods are delivered across the border in Thailand, or sometimes by boat from Moulmein to Penang in Malaysia, or even on to Singapore.
During the last leg of the journey, before reaching the Thai border, some traders have to pay transit fees to the various insurgent groups there—the Karen rebel army if the goods are going south to Bangkok, the Karenni army if the destination is Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai via Loikaw in Kayah State.
But these minor routes would be used by smaller traders only; most of the border between Thailand and Burma’s Shan State is controlled either by remnants of the Nationalist Chinese Koumintang, or by Chang Shee-fu (alias Khun Sa) and his powerful private army. Both groups are dominated by ethnic Chinese businessmen who run their own jade syndicates—and mercenary armies across the border with Burma.
The jade trade, which has brought a fair amount of the present wealth and well being to Chiang Mai, is seen by some observers as potentially even more lucrative than the closely connected drug trade, which sometimes is carried out by the same syndicates. That is becoming more important now when international police agencies in Thailand are stepping up their drives against narcotics smugglers. Unlike heroin, jade becomes a legal commodity once it has crossed the international frontier.
Running the gauntlet into Thailand is becoming tougher, and while most heroin refineries still appear to be located near the Thai-Burmese border, increased police supervision in Thailand is seen by many observers as the reason why more and more drugs now make a U-turn near the frontier, back into Burma and along new ones through that country.
New smuggling routes exist along which both jade and heroin pass through central Burma—where international police control is none existent—down to the Tenasserim coast. Well informed sources assert that it is not difficult to bring any kind of goods through Burma—if one can afford to pay the price.
Small traders reportedly deposit their goods with the policemen who check the passenger baggage on the Myitkyina-Mandalay and Mandalay-Rangoon trains; it is also possible to leave the contraband with the train driver, these sources say.
The fee here would not be more than a few thousand Kyats, or less than 10% of value of the goods, which can be heroin, raw opium or jade. Bigger traders, though, need more sophisticated solutions to the problem. By bribing government officials, they can obtain letters of introduction stating that they are intelligence agents on duty, and that their luggage, therefore, should not be checked. People issuing these letters range from local army officers to government ministers, the sources say, and the fee depends on the authority of the official in question and the solvency of the individual trader. Other certificates can be more cryptic, stating that the bearer should not be recruited as a porter to carry arms and ammunition for government troops—a common practice whenever the Burmese Army launches operations against country’s many insurgent groups—which indirectly means that he is an important person. Bearers of such certificates have assured this correspondent that their vehicles are never searched by the police or the army.
But now it seems that recent events along the Sino-Kachin border may change all this and drastically alter the entire network of underground trade through Burma down to Thailand, and to Malaysia and Singapore. As a result of the rapid modernization drive launched by Deng Xiaoping in China, baggy trousers and old Mao jackets are losing their former popularity—and jade is back again. According to one source along the Sino-Kachin border:
“Previously, the only decoration Chinese women could wear were red Mao badges. Now, also the Chinese in mainland China want to set off the beauty of their women as the overseas Chinese do. Jade is undergoing a renaissance in the People’s Republic.”
Buyers from Peking and Shanghai recently have come down to the border between China and Burma’s Kachin State, and they are reported to be gradually improving their knowledge, almost matching the Chinese jade merchants of pre-revolutionary days. Most of this jade seems to be earmarked for the domestic market, while some gemstones, jewelry and carvings are sold in Hong Kong via the many emporia the Chinese government maintains in the still-British territory.
The exact amount of jade now being sent to China is difficult to determine, and as far as the value goes, it may not exceed five percent of the total output at Hpakan. But it is increasing steadily, since it is a much easier route than down to Thailand.
This correspondent saw convoys of jade-laden elephants and mules winding their way up the steep mountain passes along the Sino-Kachin frontier, and there was little doubt that the routes of the former jade caravans to Tengchong in Yunnan Province were open again. The most frequently used routes lead from Hpakan to the KIA-controlled border settlements of Hkala Yang, Pa Jau and Loije. A smaller amount reaches China via Kambaiti Pass to the north, which is controlled by the Burmese Communist Party (BCP). All three aforementioned gates are in Kachin State—but most jade goes from the center at Mandalay via Lashio to Juili north of the Shweli border river in order to avoid the rebel tax gates.
The difficulty in bringing profitable goods other than jade to China could explain why many traders still prefer the much longer and more risky journey down to Thailand. One source also pointed out that the traders do not want to work only; they also want amusement:
“In Thailand, there are massage parlors and nightclubs; in China there is nothing like that yet. It’s more fun to spend your money in Chiang Mai than in Juili or Tengchong.”
But even when taking this into consideration, it is nevertheless not far-fetched to assume that the direct routes to China are destined to become more important, especially when Hong Kong returns to Chinese hands in 1997. Whether that will severely affect the jade trade with Thailand remains to be seen, but, without doubt, that route will inevitably lose much of its present significance. If that should prove to be the case, the drug syndicates which are based along the Thai-Burmese border may also be affected. Without jade as a supplementary, and complementary, commodity, the heroin trade will become less profitable and more difficult to continue effectively, some observers suggest.
“Jade is popular in China now. But neither the Chinese authorities, nor the Kachin rebels who tax the trade, would allow heroin to come along with it. The Chinese welcome green jade, but not the white powder.”
Gemologists distinguish two types of jade: jadeite and nephrite. The origin of the word jade is believed to be the expression piedra de ijada of the Spanish Conquistadores, which means stone of the side or flank. Wearing jade next to one’s kidney or liver was believed to provide healing benefits. Similarly, nephros is the Greek word for kidney, and this led to the term nephrite.
One difference between these two species is that jadeite is a vitreous and shiny stone, while nephrite has a more oily or waxy finish. Nephrite is also called green stone in New Zealand, where the native Maoris carved it for fish hooks, knives, needles and war clubs—and for religious objects, or tikis, which were worn for decoration and spiritual protection.
The Aztecs and Mayans of Central America revered the beauty of both jadeite and nephrite, and vast quantities were taken away by the Conquistadores when they occupied these ancient empires. Fair quality jadeite has been found in Guatemala, but the location of the original Mayan Mines still remains a mystery. Small quantities of jadeite have also been found in the USSR, Japan, and in California in the US.
But, it is the Kachin Hills of northern Burma which for centuries have been the world’s only supplier of top quality jadeite. The discovery that fine green jadeite occurred in the Kachin Hills is said to have been made accidentally by a Yannanese petty trader in the 13th century. The story runs that when about to return home from a trading trip to northern Burma, he picked up a stone to balance the load of his mule. It proved to be jade of excellent quality, and subsequently a large party returned to procure more. These merchants were unsuccessful, however, as no local people were able to tell them where this kind of stone could be found.
Several more missions came from China, but they were equally unsuccessful. The keenness of the Chinese to locate the jade deposits was not difficult to understand; nephrite jade had been known and appreciated in China from early times in history. And to the Chinese, jade was not just another stone—protective qualities were also attributed to it. Many Chinese children, even today, wear a kind of jade padlock around their necks to protect them from diseases. One type of Chinese nephrite is known as mutton fat, having a yellowish white color. Another variety is called chicken bone and it has a slightly lighter hue. Nephrite most commonly occurs in a green color. But even the finest nephrite is no match for the emerald green jadeite which the Yunnanese trader had brought back from the Kachin Hills.
The final discovery of the jade mines came after 1784, when centuries of hostilities between the traditional enemies, Burma and China, were terminated. Adventurous traders from Yunnan once again entered the Kachin Hills in search of the green stones. This time they managed to find them; big, precious boulders along the banks of the Uru Hka river, near the village of Hpakan, northwest of Mogaung. From the end of the 18th century onwards, the jade trade with Yunnan expanded rapidly. The only hindrances were rough roads and a climate in which malaria flourished. A Chinese temple at Amarapura near Mandalay in northern Burma has a long list of the names of more than 6000 traders who perished while searching for jade in the Kachin Hills—and the roll-call includes only the names of well known traders for whom funeral rites were held. The actual total would be many times that number, had all the small traders and adventurers been included.
The original rulers of the jade mine area were the Shan sawbwas of Mogaung—a place—a name which is actually a Burmese corruption of the Shan Mong Kawng. But pressed between the politically more powerful Burmans to the south—and the warlike Kachins, who pushed down from the north, the sawbwas of Mogaung lost their independence soon after the trade with China had been established.
The state was subjugated by the Burmese Kings of Ava in 1796, and the mines came within the domains of a number of Kachin chiefs, or duwas. The most powerful of these was the Kansi duwas, who drew considerable royalties on the jade trade—apart from the revenue collected by the Burmese governor in Mogaung. The Burmese Kings quickly became aware of the importance of the jade trade; already by 1806 a Burmese Collectorate with an armed force was located in Mogaung.
Although there is no jade at Mogaung itself, the town soon became the headquarters of the jade trade in Burma. Few merchants themselves actually went up to the mines. Instead, they hired local people to dig for them, and the jade brought down to Mogaung where it was bought by the Chinese and taxed by the Burmese authorities. From Mogaung, caravans—often protected by Panthay, or Muslim Chinese, mercenaries from Yunnan—wound their way over the high mountain passes east of the Irrawaddy, across the frontier into China. The demand for jadeite was universal throughout China, and the Hpakan mines were the only source of this superior type and quality.
The trade with China has since been interrupted only four times. The first cut-off occurred during the First Opium War between Britain and China in the 1840’s, when Cantonese traders no longer could come to buy the stones at Kunming in Yunnan. When the war was over, the trade commenced again, but it soon came to a new halt when the Panthay Muslims rebelled in 1857. The unrest in Yunnan, which prevailed for many years, prompted some traders to negotiate with the Burmese Kings, and a new route was opened by sea from Canton, up the Irrawaddy to Mandalay.
From then on the trade picked up and, before long, the mountain routes via Yunnan came into use once more. It continued uninterrupted until World War Two and the Japanese invasions of China and Burma in the 1940s. The fourth time the trade was stopped was, naturally, after the communist revolution in China in 1949. This brought the trade with China to a standstill, which at first appeared to be permanent. Hong Kong then emerged as the world’s leader center, with Chiang Mai in northern Thailand as the most important nexus along the long and dangerous route from Hpakan. By then, the mines had been nationalized by the Burmese government following the military takeover in 1962—at least in theory.
The jade-belt roughly stretches from Hweka north of Indawgyi Lake to Singkaling Hkamti on the Chindwin river, with the main mining area suited between Hpakan and Tawmaw near the Uru Kha river. Jade is also found at a few other places in Kachin State, notably at Mandawng and Shangaw east of the Nmai Hka river—but the quality there is said to be inferior to that of Hkapan-Tawmaw area.
A trained eye is said to be able to distinguish one type of jade from another, and even say from which mine the stone has been brought. But not until it has been cut. Through millions of years of exposure to weathering, jade boulders oxidize, developing a gray to brown exterior skin. Such a skin is largely opaque, hiding the color and quality of the material underneath. Thus no one is able to say exactly what the quality of a piece is until this skin is removed by grinding, or the boulder opened by sawing. It may be the highly prized, translucent emerald green known in the trade as imperial jade, sometimes worth thousands of dollars per carat, or it could be of an opaque white color worth practically nothing. Part of the excitement surrounding the jade business is exactly this: buying the unskinned rough is very much of a gamble. Traders can make a big profit if lucky, or lose their shirts if the quality is low.
This gambling connected with the purchase of rough jadeite could be one of several reasons why jade became so popular with the Chinese—and why the communists later frowned upon it after the 1949 revolution. Now, when China is rediscovering many of its former traditions, the traders from Peking and Shanghai appear to have settled for a compromise: jade, minus the gamble.
“They want to cut the stones before they buy them,” said one local jade expert on the Sino-Kachin border.
Hong Kong is usually the final destination of most jadeite which comes out from Burma via Thailand. The British colony entered the international jade market when the Japanese occupied the former trading centers of Peking, Shanghai and Canton during World War Two—and when the communists took over China in 1949. These events forced two waves of jade merchants to flee to Hong Kong, which soon became the world’s main marketplace for cut jade. Today, either they or their descendants are among the most prominent of the 40 members of the Hong Kong Jade & Stone Manufacturer’s Association.
Despite being carried out by people in business suits and neckties, Hong Kong’s jade auctions are still steeped in ancient Chinese ritual. Whereas a Western auctioneer is all noise and movement, his Cantonese counterpart will stand still and wait for customers to come up to him and offer their bids, using the legendary finger sign bidding technique. The prospective buyer will privately touch the fingers of the auctioneer under a piece of cloth, and just whisper if he is indicating hundreds or thousands of Hong Kong dollars. Keeping all the secret bids in his head, the auctioneer will finally clasp the fingers of the bidder who has offered the most suitable price.
A jade deal has been made.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Asian Markets Push Illegal Ivory
BBC News writes:
The illegal ivory trade is expanding, driven by East Asian crime syndicates, according to the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic.
The syndicates gather ivory in Africa for export to East Asian countries. The biggest market is mainland China, though there is also significant trade to other countries such as Thailand and the Philippines, and to Hong Kong.
Traffic says there are 92 illegal ivory seizures per month, and the number of large hauls has doubled in a decade. Its report will be presented to next month's meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), where wildlife campaigners hope it will put pressure on governments whose countries are used by the traffickers.
"The relevant question is whether Cites is going to crack down or not, whether governments are going to show some political will," said Sue Lieberman, director of the global species programme at WWF which runs Traffic together with the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
"The Asian market is the key. It is thriving again in Thailand, and a lot of Chinese businesses have moved into Africa, for example timber companies, which means more ivory is coming out," she told the BBC News website.
Big hauls up
Traffic bases its report on an analysis of nearly 12,400 records of ivory seizures in 82 countries dating back to 1989 as part of the Elephant Trade Information System (Etis). It clearly identifies the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Nigeria as the main sources of illegal ivory.
"With myriad conflicts, central Africa is currently haemorrhaging ivory," observed Tom Milliken, director of Traffic's Africa programme. "These three countries are major conduits for trafficking illegal ivory from the region to international markets, particularly in Asia."
The number of seizures fell between 1990 and 1995, but there has been a rising trend since then. The number of large hauls - above one tonne - has also risen, which Dr Lieberman believes "demonstrates greater sophistication, organisation and finance".
China is identified as the single biggest market, though Traffic says enforcement has improved markedly in the last five years. On the African side, the conservation group singles out Ethiopia for praise as a country which has effectively implemented an action plan drawn up by Cites four years ago, clamping down on its domestic ivory market.
More info @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6644365.stm
The illegal ivory trade is expanding, driven by East Asian crime syndicates, according to the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic.
The syndicates gather ivory in Africa for export to East Asian countries. The biggest market is mainland China, though there is also significant trade to other countries such as Thailand and the Philippines, and to Hong Kong.
Traffic says there are 92 illegal ivory seizures per month, and the number of large hauls has doubled in a decade. Its report will be presented to next month's meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), where wildlife campaigners hope it will put pressure on governments whose countries are used by the traffickers.
"The relevant question is whether Cites is going to crack down or not, whether governments are going to show some political will," said Sue Lieberman, director of the global species programme at WWF which runs Traffic together with the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
"The Asian market is the key. It is thriving again in Thailand, and a lot of Chinese businesses have moved into Africa, for example timber companies, which means more ivory is coming out," she told the BBC News website.
Big hauls up
Traffic bases its report on an analysis of nearly 12,400 records of ivory seizures in 82 countries dating back to 1989 as part of the Elephant Trade Information System (Etis). It clearly identifies the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Nigeria as the main sources of illegal ivory.
"With myriad conflicts, central Africa is currently haemorrhaging ivory," observed Tom Milliken, director of Traffic's Africa programme. "These three countries are major conduits for trafficking illegal ivory from the region to international markets, particularly in Asia."
The number of seizures fell between 1990 and 1995, but there has been a rising trend since then. The number of large hauls - above one tonne - has also risen, which Dr Lieberman believes "demonstrates greater sophistication, organisation and finance".
China is identified as the single biggest market, though Traffic says enforcement has improved markedly in the last five years. On the African side, the conservation group singles out Ethiopia for praise as a country which has effectively implemented an action plan drawn up by Cites four years ago, clamping down on its domestic ivory market.
More info @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6644365.stm
On Distribution Channel
Gabi Tolkowsky writes:
Once you have a new cut you must be able to distribute and market it. You have to combine efforts with someone who is interested. You must also consider is the price interesting, is the cut beautiful enough to show others, can you make a continuous supply? You have to have a regular supply of rough to continue to provide a distributor with enough diamonds to supply the public. You must think about whether the cut will be successful enough to take a share of the market and you must be able to move away from it, if people get tired of it. You must also consider your market. Are you targeting the upscale or mass market? Are the cuts for small or large stones? From my personal side, I am still surprised by the lack of knowledge about the diamonds themselves. The industry has invented cuts that are fascinating and beautiful, but we don’t market them because we are not sure there is a demand for it.
Once you have a new cut you must be able to distribute and market it. You have to combine efforts with someone who is interested. You must also consider is the price interesting, is the cut beautiful enough to show others, can you make a continuous supply? You have to have a regular supply of rough to continue to provide a distributor with enough diamonds to supply the public. You must think about whether the cut will be successful enough to take a share of the market and you must be able to move away from it, if people get tired of it. You must also consider your market. Are you targeting the upscale or mass market? Are the cuts for small or large stones? From my personal side, I am still surprised by the lack of knowledge about the diamonds themselves. The industry has invented cuts that are fascinating and beautiful, but we don’t market them because we are not sure there is a demand for it.
On Marketing Magic
Gabi Tolkowsky writes:
During the 1960s marketing diamonds changed. It opened up the market for owning diamonds to everyone. People began to buy diamonds because they could. Millions of individuals started buying diamonds. Each person had an individual sense of beauty, and each one wanted to have something individual. The industry started to design more jewelry, much of which had diamonds with the same style of cut. Consumers became more sophisticated and they wanted something unique for themselves. Then cutters began to study more—how could they make diamonds have more light, more brilliance? This is how you start to invent new cut. As a cutter you see the transformation of the rough to polished. You see what is firey and if you are creative, you can invent a new cut.
During the 1960s marketing diamonds changed. It opened up the market for owning diamonds to everyone. People began to buy diamonds because they could. Millions of individuals started buying diamonds. Each person had an individual sense of beauty, and each one wanted to have something individual. The industry started to design more jewelry, much of which had diamonds with the same style of cut. Consumers became more sophisticated and they wanted something unique for themselves. Then cutters began to study more—how could they make diamonds have more light, more brilliance? This is how you start to invent new cut. As a cutter you see the transformation of the rough to polished. You see what is firey and if you are creative, you can invent a new cut.
The Valuations/Assessments/Appraisals Minefield
(via Gemological Digest, Vol.2, No.4, 1989) Bernice Backler writes:
Introduction
Very regrettably, over the years many so-called valuations emanating from around the world have proven to be nothing but worthless bits of paper, due to the fact they have been performed by persons holding an I.B.A (Incompetent Bumbling Amateur) Diploma. These valuations are incomprehensible, inaccurate, incomplete and inadmissible in court, all due to incompetent ignoramuses trying to do something they know not one iota about.
This brings to mind a photograph in a recent jewelry magazine showing Joe Soap, expert jeweler, assessing a valuable gem. Joe Soap was shown standing in a ridiculous position, his ample stomach pushed out, holding a something up to the heavens and viewing it through a jeweler’s glass, with the glass held the wrong way around. Or was he seeking divine inspiration?
As gemologists with reasonable international standing, we (my firm) decided some years ago that we would specialize in valuations, doing them the way they should be done, as distinct from the expensive thumbsucks (of which we have a very large file). One such example of a thumbsuck appraisal was given as follows: “ two round diamonds in a gold band”—this from a self-styled manufacturer/faceter who has never manufactured anything or ever cut a stone in his life.
The client who wishes to know what his jewelry is worth, for whatever reason, puts his trust—his entire trust—in the jeweler, and pays good money for what he thinks is a proper valuation, only to discover later that the appraisal is not worth the paper it is written on. Should not the client be entitled to a fair, honest and thorough valuation? Remember, it is the mug who sits on the other side of the counter who pays our salaries.
I will attempt to set out hereunder exactly what the client should get for his/her money in the way of proper valuation/appraisal/assessment.
What is a valuation?
A valuation report is first and foremost a legal document which sets out in full detail all the important points of the piece of jewelry concerned.
Creation of this document must be carried out with the scrupulous degree of care required by law. The art and science of valuation shows the jeweler/gemologist/appraiser at the highest pitch of his faculties; all his knowledge is summoned and focused on the subject in question. His appreciation of what is beautiful, his eye for fine color in gems, his experience of what the market regards as highly valued and sought after—all of these skills are critically exercised.
A true expert is obliged to reach his decision impartially and scientifically, to substantiate it and issue it written (usually typed) form. The issuing of an accommodating valuation (where the client required the actual value to be altered to suit his/her requirements) is contrary to moral principles (in fact, fraud could possibly be proved), as is also the issuing of an irresponsible or careless valuation.
Why do you need a valuation?
There are two main forms of valuation:
1. Insurance: which gives details of full replacement value on basis of like for like according to the values current at the time.
2. Probate: this is a valuation for death duty purposes where the valuation is based purely on materials, i.e. weight of gold and/or value of gems without taking into account workmanship, or applicable taxes or mark ups.
There is, very regrettably, one more form of valuation peculiar to the jewelry trade and it causes considerable damage to honest reputations and generates much bad feeling. This is brought about by a client who goes to a professional appraiser first, and then (usually) goes to a retailer for reassurance that the valuation is correct.
Unfortunately there are unscrupulous persons in every country who will deliberately undervalue goods, either to discredit the competition or because they wish to buy the article (s) in question. This practice is called poising among the jewelry trade, for obvious reasons.
What is a valuator/appraiser?
The appraiser must be a member/graduate of a recognized gemological and/or appraisal body, such as the Gemological Association of Great Britain (GAGB), the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), or any other foreign association or institute. By so being he constantly receives updated information on the gem and jewelry scene, like new techniques, new stones, new fakes (of which roughly one a month rears its ugly head). He must also keep himself informed by getting magazines, trade publications, etc. from as many sources as possible and, importantly, keep his price lists up to date.
An appraiser must reveal openly and fairly al he knows about the stone in question—after all, his primary responsibility is to the person to whom he is giving the valuation. It goes without saying that if he is a member of gemological and/or appraisal association, he will understand the need to have all the relevant instrumentation to help him sort out the various stones and fakes, such a microscope, refractometer, polariscope, spectroscope, photometer (or colorimeter), high intensity (fiber optic) lamp, konoscope, diamond grading light box, and all the other instruments, etc. ad nauseam.
In plain English, he has to keep his nose to the grindstone to keep up to date in this rapidly changing world. If he does not, he is forever lost. I know of one so-called gemologist who proudly states that after he got his piece of paper 19 years ago, he has not since opened a book because I know it all. This gentleman’s knowledge was not worth the ink on his diploma six months after he got it. To have a piece of paper hanging on the wall does not qualify one to be an appraiser; a professional appraiser is constantly studying and thus is qualified by continuing experience. In a nutshell, an appraiser never finishes training because he is always learning new concepts, ideas, etc.
What an appraiser needs to know
Obviously, the first prerequisite is a sound fundamental knowledge of gemology, backed up by a good library for reference purposes. The second item is a diamond price index. A very good service is provided by a New York firm (Rapaport) who issues a weekly sheet giving not only current diamond wholesale prices covering the entire color and clarity range in sizes from 0.01 to 5.00 carats, but also other relevant market information. The service is considered by some to be rather pricey, but to the professional appraiser it is worth every penny.
Colored stone prices—ruby, sapphire, emerald, opal, and other lesser gems—can be obtained also from sources in the States. Again the subscription price is not exactly cheap at first glance, but represents a wise (and essential investment) for the professional appraiser.
So much for the obvious. As nearly all prices used internationally are given in US dollars, the appraiser has to be able to work his currency in relation to the dollar; diamonds all have base prices quoted in dollars at a wholesale level. He also must take into account inflation rates, import taxes, surtaxes, excise duties, sales taxes, labor costs, and know the various mark-ups from manufacturers to retailers. Additionally, he must also follow the daily fluctuations of precious metal prices and keep a register of these fluctuations, as well as have knowledge of metal testing and assaying so that he can accurately describe the gold/silver/platinum content of a piece. Of major importance is the ability to fully describe the piece in terms that will satisfy both other appraiser/gemologists to whom the report might be shown, while at the same time being understandable to the layperson/customer for whom the report is prepared. Detailed worksheets should be used to jot down the appraiser’s findings and these must be kept on file for reference in later years. The appraiser must also be prepared to stand up in court and support his valuations to everyone’s satisfaction, especially the courts’. This is one place where the keeping of accurate records pays off.
In doing any appraisal, the appraiser must always remember that, next to one’s house, one’s jewelry is probably the biggest investment that a person will ever make. If you were ill and needed a doctor you would not go to a plumber, but strangely, people are always prepared to go to any Tom, Dick or Harry who says he is an appraiser and end up with a worthless piece of paper which states two round diamonds in a gold ring.
Length of training
1. Professional appraiser: Usually two to three years, either in-house or home study, and then constant updating of this knowledge for the rest of one’s life (which, incidentally, costs quite a whack of money).
2. Retail jeweler: Usually three to four days (based on worldwide examples) and then many consider themselves fully trained, often never taking any more courses or doing very little further updating. But, because they are called jewelers they think they have a god-given right to do valuations, and this is where the majority of our thumbsucks come into the picture.
Cost of training
1. Professional: Over the years many tens of thousands of dollars when one takes into account the cost (ever increasing) of instrumentation, books, magazines, fees to professional bodies, fees to institutions, updated price lists and all of the many other items which go into making his job top of the line.
2. Retailer: A three to four days course on jewelry appraisal which costs between $200-500 today, from various teaching establishments.
Ethics of the jeweler/appraiser
When a person goes to a jeweler/appraiser, he goes because he has confidence in that person. This confidence is the jeweler/appraiser’s most precious possessions and a very high ethical standard must be maintained in a profession where the client is at such a disadvantage (through ignorance of the nature, properties and value of gems and metals). This ethical code involves truth in all directions, especially in the description of the goods. It is a responsibility which cannot and must not be taken lightly.
Disclosure of treatments
There is a moral and legal obligation on the part of the appraiser/gemologist/jeweler to disclose to his client the fact that his stone has been treated (and so is no longer totally natural), if, in fact, such is the case. Some of the most common treatments we see today are:
a. Oiled emeralds, to enhance color and clarity.
b. Glass-filled (surface repaired) rubies, to fill in surface pits and cavities.
c. Laser-drilled diamonds, to burn out clarity defects.
d. Dyed gems, such as lapis and turquoise, to enhance color, or plastic impregnation.
e. Heat treatment of ruby, sapphire, aquamarine, tanzanite, etc. to enhance color and/or clarity.
f. Irradiation of blue topaz, to enhance color.
This list could go on forever because there are so many different treatments used today to improve the appearance and salability of gemstones. Gems & Gemology, the official organ of the Gemological Institute of America, as well as other gemological journals, contains details of the various treatments in use today. The gemologist’s bible on the subject of gem treatments is Gemstone Enhancement by Dr Kurt Nassau. Any appraiser worthy of his salt should be able to detect treatments quite easily.
Loss to client and insurance company due to poor appraisals
Let us assume that you have a poor valuation on a ring and the value is given as, say, $1000. The insurance company charges, say, 4% to cover your ring, so you pay them $40. You lose your ring and then it is discovered that to replace like with like would cost you $10000, and the insurance company’s premium would have been $400. You, the client, carry the onus, so you would be under insured. The insurance company brings in their average clause and you get $100. Not a very pretty picture, is it? Maybe the insurance company will not even offer you $100; they may just cut the claim entirely.
How a physical valuation should be performed
The ideal way is to perform the valuation in front of the client where he can see each step as it is being done. Not only does this impress him with the amount of work which goes into a valuation, but it also does away with the oft-seen charge that he changed my stone, which could be difficult to prove or disprove if the appraisal were done in a back office, away from the customer.
It must be borne in mind that some rings and other pieces of jewelry are brought in such a dirty condition that after cleaning, the piece may appear totally different compared to the lifeless object that it once was.
Legal position of the professional appraiser/retail jeweler
First we will discuss the oft-heard phrase he changed my stone. If this charge cannot be proved and the person so charged has been brought into disrepute by false claim, he can then sue the person who made the claim, and could perhaps take them to the cleaners.
Stones do get changed by unscrupulous traders from time to time—remember we are dealing with one of the world’s costliest items—and the only way to sort this out is to have a full and factual appraisal, where the parameters of one can be checked against the other.
Both the appraiser and the retail jeweler can be legally sued for the same things—these are normally fraud, misrepresentation, incompetence, negligence, etc. where appraisals are concerned.
An example of how an appraisal should be done
Recently, a diamond dealer I know sold a diamond at a little above the current wholesale price to a friend of his to have made up into an engagement ring. The cost of the stone was $1800, it weighed 0.63ct.was of H color (top commercial white), and of SI (slightly included) clarity. The ring, and a wedding band with three small diamonds therein, was subsequently made up by a manufacturing jeweler (not my firm) and was then taken to a so-called expert retail jeweler for appraisal. His appraisal took ten minutes, covered three lines, was handwritten (apparently no copy was kept) on a cardboard certificate and stated:
“Round brilliant diamond, 0.53ct, color H, P2 (second pique) plus 3 x .03 side stones in gold wedding set.”
He the offered to buy the diamond for $1200. In his thumbsuck appraisal he lost ten points on the diamond’s weight, gave it a second pique (which is one step away from reject) and a worthless description. His offer to buy the diamond smacked of misrepresentation in that he saw he could get a reasonably good diamond for virtually nothing. To say that the client was no impressed would be putting it mildly.
The dealer immediately telephoned us to say that he would bring his client out, and we did an appraisal as it should have been done.
John Doe
1. One yellow gold solitaire engagement ring stamped 18 karat, weighing 4.35 g, set with one modern round brilliant cut, SI clarity, top commercial white (H color) diamond estimated to weigh approx. 0.64ct, measuring 5.41mm, of good polish with pointed culet, and unpolished light to medium girdle, very slight fluorescence, Okuda angle 80%+ (very good); and one modern round brilliant cut, SI clarity, weak commercial white (J color) diamond in each bow-tie shaped shoulder, estimated to weigh approx. 0.03ct each, measuring approx. 2mm each, of medium polish with pointed culet, unpolished girdle, and non-fluorescent. All claws new and in good condition. Identifying marks: 18 karat. All clarities determined at 10x. Diamond colors photometrically confirmed.
Appraised value = $4150.00
2. One yellow gold ladies’ matching wedding ring stamped 18 karat, weighing 2.8g, set with one SI clarity (at 10x), weak commercial white (J color) diamond, estimated to weight approx. 0.03 ct, measuring approx. 2mm, of medium polish with pointed culet, and non-fluorescent. Identifying marks: 18 karat. All claws new and in good condition.
Appraised value = $313.00
Shank widths:
Engagement ring: 4mm – 2 mm
Wedding ring: 4mm
Shank thicknesses:
Engagement ring: 1mm
Wedding ring: 1mm
Accolade
I recently appraised some jewelry for a lady going to Great Britain. Regrettably, she lost our valuation certificate, did not realize we kept copies of all appraisals done, and had her jewelry revalued in England. On her return she stopped in and we saw the British appraisal. After making allowances for the two different taxing systems, we discovered we were within £1 of the British appraisal. If one can’t call that spot on, I do not know what is.
Conclusion
In conclusion, let me aim a barbed dart at the people who load the market with thumbsuck valuations, guesstimates, and whatever other names apply. These people are mainly retailers. Let me say the following: “Know your limitations. Do not try to do everything. Succeed at what you can do, and do it very well indeed.”
We are all in the game to make money and it does not matter whether we make money selling jewelry products, or in the case of appraiser, selling knowledge. What does matter is that we do it with integrity.
In all fairness, it must be stated that there are certain retail jewelers who, because of their limitations, refuse point blank to do appraisals.
Introduction
Very regrettably, over the years many so-called valuations emanating from around the world have proven to be nothing but worthless bits of paper, due to the fact they have been performed by persons holding an I.B.A (Incompetent Bumbling Amateur) Diploma. These valuations are incomprehensible, inaccurate, incomplete and inadmissible in court, all due to incompetent ignoramuses trying to do something they know not one iota about.
This brings to mind a photograph in a recent jewelry magazine showing Joe Soap, expert jeweler, assessing a valuable gem. Joe Soap was shown standing in a ridiculous position, his ample stomach pushed out, holding a something up to the heavens and viewing it through a jeweler’s glass, with the glass held the wrong way around. Or was he seeking divine inspiration?
As gemologists with reasonable international standing, we (my firm) decided some years ago that we would specialize in valuations, doing them the way they should be done, as distinct from the expensive thumbsucks (of which we have a very large file). One such example of a thumbsuck appraisal was given as follows: “ two round diamonds in a gold band”—this from a self-styled manufacturer/faceter who has never manufactured anything or ever cut a stone in his life.
The client who wishes to know what his jewelry is worth, for whatever reason, puts his trust—his entire trust—in the jeweler, and pays good money for what he thinks is a proper valuation, only to discover later that the appraisal is not worth the paper it is written on. Should not the client be entitled to a fair, honest and thorough valuation? Remember, it is the mug who sits on the other side of the counter who pays our salaries.
I will attempt to set out hereunder exactly what the client should get for his/her money in the way of proper valuation/appraisal/assessment.
What is a valuation?
A valuation report is first and foremost a legal document which sets out in full detail all the important points of the piece of jewelry concerned.
Creation of this document must be carried out with the scrupulous degree of care required by law. The art and science of valuation shows the jeweler/gemologist/appraiser at the highest pitch of his faculties; all his knowledge is summoned and focused on the subject in question. His appreciation of what is beautiful, his eye for fine color in gems, his experience of what the market regards as highly valued and sought after—all of these skills are critically exercised.
A true expert is obliged to reach his decision impartially and scientifically, to substantiate it and issue it written (usually typed) form. The issuing of an accommodating valuation (where the client required the actual value to be altered to suit his/her requirements) is contrary to moral principles (in fact, fraud could possibly be proved), as is also the issuing of an irresponsible or careless valuation.
Why do you need a valuation?
There are two main forms of valuation:
1. Insurance: which gives details of full replacement value on basis of like for like according to the values current at the time.
2. Probate: this is a valuation for death duty purposes where the valuation is based purely on materials, i.e. weight of gold and/or value of gems without taking into account workmanship, or applicable taxes or mark ups.
There is, very regrettably, one more form of valuation peculiar to the jewelry trade and it causes considerable damage to honest reputations and generates much bad feeling. This is brought about by a client who goes to a professional appraiser first, and then (usually) goes to a retailer for reassurance that the valuation is correct.
Unfortunately there are unscrupulous persons in every country who will deliberately undervalue goods, either to discredit the competition or because they wish to buy the article (s) in question. This practice is called poising among the jewelry trade, for obvious reasons.
What is a valuator/appraiser?
The appraiser must be a member/graduate of a recognized gemological and/or appraisal body, such as the Gemological Association of Great Britain (GAGB), the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), or any other foreign association or institute. By so being he constantly receives updated information on the gem and jewelry scene, like new techniques, new stones, new fakes (of which roughly one a month rears its ugly head). He must also keep himself informed by getting magazines, trade publications, etc. from as many sources as possible and, importantly, keep his price lists up to date.
An appraiser must reveal openly and fairly al he knows about the stone in question—after all, his primary responsibility is to the person to whom he is giving the valuation. It goes without saying that if he is a member of gemological and/or appraisal association, he will understand the need to have all the relevant instrumentation to help him sort out the various stones and fakes, such a microscope, refractometer, polariscope, spectroscope, photometer (or colorimeter), high intensity (fiber optic) lamp, konoscope, diamond grading light box, and all the other instruments, etc. ad nauseam.
In plain English, he has to keep his nose to the grindstone to keep up to date in this rapidly changing world. If he does not, he is forever lost. I know of one so-called gemologist who proudly states that after he got his piece of paper 19 years ago, he has not since opened a book because I know it all. This gentleman’s knowledge was not worth the ink on his diploma six months after he got it. To have a piece of paper hanging on the wall does not qualify one to be an appraiser; a professional appraiser is constantly studying and thus is qualified by continuing experience. In a nutshell, an appraiser never finishes training because he is always learning new concepts, ideas, etc.
What an appraiser needs to know
Obviously, the first prerequisite is a sound fundamental knowledge of gemology, backed up by a good library for reference purposes. The second item is a diamond price index. A very good service is provided by a New York firm (Rapaport) who issues a weekly sheet giving not only current diamond wholesale prices covering the entire color and clarity range in sizes from 0.01 to 5.00 carats, but also other relevant market information. The service is considered by some to be rather pricey, but to the professional appraiser it is worth every penny.
Colored stone prices—ruby, sapphire, emerald, opal, and other lesser gems—can be obtained also from sources in the States. Again the subscription price is not exactly cheap at first glance, but represents a wise (and essential investment) for the professional appraiser.
So much for the obvious. As nearly all prices used internationally are given in US dollars, the appraiser has to be able to work his currency in relation to the dollar; diamonds all have base prices quoted in dollars at a wholesale level. He also must take into account inflation rates, import taxes, surtaxes, excise duties, sales taxes, labor costs, and know the various mark-ups from manufacturers to retailers. Additionally, he must also follow the daily fluctuations of precious metal prices and keep a register of these fluctuations, as well as have knowledge of metal testing and assaying so that he can accurately describe the gold/silver/platinum content of a piece. Of major importance is the ability to fully describe the piece in terms that will satisfy both other appraiser/gemologists to whom the report might be shown, while at the same time being understandable to the layperson/customer for whom the report is prepared. Detailed worksheets should be used to jot down the appraiser’s findings and these must be kept on file for reference in later years. The appraiser must also be prepared to stand up in court and support his valuations to everyone’s satisfaction, especially the courts’. This is one place where the keeping of accurate records pays off.
In doing any appraisal, the appraiser must always remember that, next to one’s house, one’s jewelry is probably the biggest investment that a person will ever make. If you were ill and needed a doctor you would not go to a plumber, but strangely, people are always prepared to go to any Tom, Dick or Harry who says he is an appraiser and end up with a worthless piece of paper which states two round diamonds in a gold ring.
Length of training
1. Professional appraiser: Usually two to three years, either in-house or home study, and then constant updating of this knowledge for the rest of one’s life (which, incidentally, costs quite a whack of money).
2. Retail jeweler: Usually three to four days (based on worldwide examples) and then many consider themselves fully trained, often never taking any more courses or doing very little further updating. But, because they are called jewelers they think they have a god-given right to do valuations, and this is where the majority of our thumbsucks come into the picture.
Cost of training
1. Professional: Over the years many tens of thousands of dollars when one takes into account the cost (ever increasing) of instrumentation, books, magazines, fees to professional bodies, fees to institutions, updated price lists and all of the many other items which go into making his job top of the line.
2. Retailer: A three to four days course on jewelry appraisal which costs between $200-500 today, from various teaching establishments.
Ethics of the jeweler/appraiser
When a person goes to a jeweler/appraiser, he goes because he has confidence in that person. This confidence is the jeweler/appraiser’s most precious possessions and a very high ethical standard must be maintained in a profession where the client is at such a disadvantage (through ignorance of the nature, properties and value of gems and metals). This ethical code involves truth in all directions, especially in the description of the goods. It is a responsibility which cannot and must not be taken lightly.
Disclosure of treatments
There is a moral and legal obligation on the part of the appraiser/gemologist/jeweler to disclose to his client the fact that his stone has been treated (and so is no longer totally natural), if, in fact, such is the case. Some of the most common treatments we see today are:
a. Oiled emeralds, to enhance color and clarity.
b. Glass-filled (surface repaired) rubies, to fill in surface pits and cavities.
c. Laser-drilled diamonds, to burn out clarity defects.
d. Dyed gems, such as lapis and turquoise, to enhance color, or plastic impregnation.
e. Heat treatment of ruby, sapphire, aquamarine, tanzanite, etc. to enhance color and/or clarity.
f. Irradiation of blue topaz, to enhance color.
This list could go on forever because there are so many different treatments used today to improve the appearance and salability of gemstones. Gems & Gemology, the official organ of the Gemological Institute of America, as well as other gemological journals, contains details of the various treatments in use today. The gemologist’s bible on the subject of gem treatments is Gemstone Enhancement by Dr Kurt Nassau. Any appraiser worthy of his salt should be able to detect treatments quite easily.
Loss to client and insurance company due to poor appraisals
Let us assume that you have a poor valuation on a ring and the value is given as, say, $1000. The insurance company charges, say, 4% to cover your ring, so you pay them $40. You lose your ring and then it is discovered that to replace like with like would cost you $10000, and the insurance company’s premium would have been $400. You, the client, carry the onus, so you would be under insured. The insurance company brings in their average clause and you get $100. Not a very pretty picture, is it? Maybe the insurance company will not even offer you $100; they may just cut the claim entirely.
How a physical valuation should be performed
The ideal way is to perform the valuation in front of the client where he can see each step as it is being done. Not only does this impress him with the amount of work which goes into a valuation, but it also does away with the oft-seen charge that he changed my stone, which could be difficult to prove or disprove if the appraisal were done in a back office, away from the customer.
It must be borne in mind that some rings and other pieces of jewelry are brought in such a dirty condition that after cleaning, the piece may appear totally different compared to the lifeless object that it once was.
Legal position of the professional appraiser/retail jeweler
First we will discuss the oft-heard phrase he changed my stone. If this charge cannot be proved and the person so charged has been brought into disrepute by false claim, he can then sue the person who made the claim, and could perhaps take them to the cleaners.
Stones do get changed by unscrupulous traders from time to time—remember we are dealing with one of the world’s costliest items—and the only way to sort this out is to have a full and factual appraisal, where the parameters of one can be checked against the other.
Both the appraiser and the retail jeweler can be legally sued for the same things—these are normally fraud, misrepresentation, incompetence, negligence, etc. where appraisals are concerned.
An example of how an appraisal should be done
Recently, a diamond dealer I know sold a diamond at a little above the current wholesale price to a friend of his to have made up into an engagement ring. The cost of the stone was $1800, it weighed 0.63ct.was of H color (top commercial white), and of SI (slightly included) clarity. The ring, and a wedding band with three small diamonds therein, was subsequently made up by a manufacturing jeweler (not my firm) and was then taken to a so-called expert retail jeweler for appraisal. His appraisal took ten minutes, covered three lines, was handwritten (apparently no copy was kept) on a cardboard certificate and stated:
“Round brilliant diamond, 0.53ct, color H, P2 (second pique) plus 3 x .03 side stones in gold wedding set.”
He the offered to buy the diamond for $1200. In his thumbsuck appraisal he lost ten points on the diamond’s weight, gave it a second pique (which is one step away from reject) and a worthless description. His offer to buy the diamond smacked of misrepresentation in that he saw he could get a reasonably good diamond for virtually nothing. To say that the client was no impressed would be putting it mildly.
The dealer immediately telephoned us to say that he would bring his client out, and we did an appraisal as it should have been done.
John Doe
1. One yellow gold solitaire engagement ring stamped 18 karat, weighing 4.35 g, set with one modern round brilliant cut, SI clarity, top commercial white (H color) diamond estimated to weigh approx. 0.64ct, measuring 5.41mm, of good polish with pointed culet, and unpolished light to medium girdle, very slight fluorescence, Okuda angle 80%+ (very good); and one modern round brilliant cut, SI clarity, weak commercial white (J color) diamond in each bow-tie shaped shoulder, estimated to weigh approx. 0.03ct each, measuring approx. 2mm each, of medium polish with pointed culet, unpolished girdle, and non-fluorescent. All claws new and in good condition. Identifying marks: 18 karat. All clarities determined at 10x. Diamond colors photometrically confirmed.
Appraised value = $4150.00
2. One yellow gold ladies’ matching wedding ring stamped 18 karat, weighing 2.8g, set with one SI clarity (at 10x), weak commercial white (J color) diamond, estimated to weight approx. 0.03 ct, measuring approx. 2mm, of medium polish with pointed culet, and non-fluorescent. Identifying marks: 18 karat. All claws new and in good condition.
Appraised value = $313.00
Shank widths:
Engagement ring: 4mm – 2 mm
Wedding ring: 4mm
Shank thicknesses:
Engagement ring: 1mm
Wedding ring: 1mm
Accolade
I recently appraised some jewelry for a lady going to Great Britain. Regrettably, she lost our valuation certificate, did not realize we kept copies of all appraisals done, and had her jewelry revalued in England. On her return she stopped in and we saw the British appraisal. After making allowances for the two different taxing systems, we discovered we were within £1 of the British appraisal. If one can’t call that spot on, I do not know what is.
Conclusion
In conclusion, let me aim a barbed dart at the people who load the market with thumbsuck valuations, guesstimates, and whatever other names apply. These people are mainly retailers. Let me say the following: “Know your limitations. Do not try to do everything. Succeed at what you can do, and do it very well indeed.”
We are all in the game to make money and it does not matter whether we make money selling jewelry products, or in the case of appraiser, selling knowledge. What does matter is that we do it with integrity.
In all fairness, it must be stated that there are certain retail jewelers who, because of their limitations, refuse point blank to do appraisals.
The Muppet Movie
Memorable quote (s) from the movie:
Kermit (Jim Henson): Life is like a movie. Write your own ending. Keep believing. Keep pretending. We've done just what we've set out to do. Someday you'll find it, the rainbow connection. The lovers, the dreamers, and you!
Kermit (Jim Henson): Life is like a movie. Write your own ending. Keep believing. Keep pretending. We've done just what we've set out to do. Someday you'll find it, the rainbow connection. The lovers, the dreamers, and you!
Reliability Of Origin Determination For Gemstones
(via Gemological Digest, Vol.3, No.1, 1990) Dr Henry A Hanni writes:
Definition: Origin = geographical place where a gemstone is situated.
This is either the primary deposit in the parent rock or a secondary deposit where the gemstones have been accumulated after decomposition of the parent rock. Since the term Burma, Pailin and Kashmir have a geographical meaning, they should not be used to express a gemstone color type, because it is common knowledge that a particular deposit may produce different shades of colors, some of which may be found in other deposits, as well.
The need for certification of a gemstone’s origin seems to be limited to only a few species or varieties of gems, and to a small group of quite famous deposits. In certain cases, a cut stone can express its place of origin through its physical and chemical properties and by its inclusions and growth structure, as long as these are clearly distinguishable from all other types. Thus these properties must be unique, either alone or in combination. The greater the number of individual and characteristic properties found in a particular stone, the more reliable is the determination of origin. Valuable characteristics should not only positively testify to a certain origin, but the same time excludes other origin possibilities.
Because of the above, experts involved in origin determination must be aware not only of the properties and characteristics of gems from famous sources, but of the properties and characteristics of all other similar sources. Only the exclusive features, those which are unique to a particular deposit can be called diagnostic properties.
Depending on the complexity of the formation of the gem crystals and on the geologic environment, the type and number of characteristics can be quite varied. Formation of gems requires some indispensable main conditions without which the gem cannot grow, as well as side conditions which can influence the growth but are not essential to the growth. Some of these main and minor conditions which can influence the properties and characteristics of gems include:
- availability of the main constituent chemical elements, and the growth speed.
- the types of available trace elements, and their concentrations.
- transport processes and the transport media involved.
- the type of energy source involved in formation (intrusive pegmatite, metamorphic, etc.)
- pressure from free oxygen.
- cooling rate after formation.
- deformation history of the parent rock and the growing crystal.
- protogenetic inclusions, reflecting the parent rock.
- syngenetic inclusions, reflecting the transport medium and genetic formation type.
All of these factors can influence the individual characteristics of a gemstone crystal, resulting in differences in:
- the size and shape of crystals, and their growth zoning.
- color, color homogeneity, color variations.
- trace element mixture (including invisible trace elements).
- solid inclusions and twinning.
- the state of healed fissures (i.e. fingerprints), geometry and degree of restoration.
- nature of fillings in negative crystal voids.
- composition of fluid inclusions.
What sort of diagnostic origin information can we collect from a cut gemstone?
Characteristic features:
- Microscopic investigation
Color and growth zoning relative to the crystallographic structure, color inhomogeneity, twinning type (s), internal strain, observation of type and distribution of solid and fluid/gas inclusions, type of healing fissures.
- Physical and optical properties
Specific gravity, refractive indices, double refraction (birefringence), fluorescent behavior, absorption spectroscopy (UV, VIS, IR), spin resonance spectroscopy, composition of fluids and minimum temperature/pressure estimation (heat/freezing stage microscope).
- Chemical determination
Trace element determination by energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence analysis (EDS-XFA), amount or relative ratio of trace elements present (e.g. Ti, Fe, Cr, V, Ga, etc.), chemical analysis of inclusions by electron beam instruments (scanning electron microscope, electron microprobe).
Some of the observed and collected characteristics are not restricted to a certain deposit, but in combination may be of diagnostic value. Those observations which are unique for a special deposit are the most important diagnostic features in regard to origin determination. Successful origin determination involves the following steps:
Observation → Comparison → Interpretation
↑ ↑ ↑
Scrutiny Comprehension Prudence
How can we get reliable basic knowledge about materials of definite known origin?
The most simple answer to this question is to collect samples directly at the mine or source. In many cases, though, this is not possible, since the source may be exhausted, or located in an inaccessible location. Therefore we must collect our reference material from a safe source, like a museum, an old collection, etc. Information on gemstone sources can also be obtained from books and publications. Many historical gemstone sources are discussed in reference books. Geographical maps give specific information on the type of deposit, scientific publications reveal the properties of the respective material, chemical analyses of the gemstones and their inclusions are published. All observations must be in agreement with the known facts, e.g. trace elements with spectroscopic analyses, inclusions with geology, etc.
From all this information we gain a very complex view of a gemstone deposit and its production. The more material we investigate, the more dense our network becomes. We are even able to add new observations to the earlier information, building upon it. Sharing and discussing new information with knowledgeable colleagues in the same field provides an added check to our results. But it is still important to revise and recheck the fundamentals of the science by basic research and study of the literature for information on new sources and new techniques. Stagnation is dangerous.
Limitations in the determination of origin
As I have pointed out at the beginning, we use differences in properties as a means of discrimination. Properties which are repeated in stones from more than one source are not valued as diagnostic characteristics, but can nevertheless be helpful in excluding other localities which do not possess these properties. As an example, a certain shade of blue does not prove a certain origin, nor does a misty turbidity. But the misty turbidity in combination with the absence of rutile needles points towards a group of possible origins and excludes some other possibilities of sapphire origins. Within the group of possible origins we may come to a definite source, as long as the stone itself contains enough further evidence pointing towards its origin. It may, for example, exhibit a distinctive absorption curve or spectrum never seen in stones from other localities. At the same time it may show included crystals (identified by an electron beam instrument, which are found only that specific source. These inclusions would, therefore, exclude all other source possibilities.
Origin determination done by the SSEF are not dependent upon a single characteristics only, but are based on at least three independent diagnostic features. Our possibilities are restricted if:
- the properties found in an individual stone may also be found in stones from several localities.
- the stone is found to be free from diagnostic features.
- the possible tests which can be performed is reduced, as, for example, in mounted stones.
- the knowledge base on the type of stone being tested is not broad enough.
Sometimes gemstone deposits and mining areas cross geographic borders, such as the corundum deposits in Kenya/Tanzania and Thailand/Cambodia. In many cases, a producing country may contain different deposits which also vary from one another in the characteristics of the stones produced, such as the corundum deposits in Sri Lanka and Montana (USA).
Many persons in the gem trade have far too little knowledge of the actual range of material coming from particular sources. Even within a single mine, the stones can vary in size, color, transparency and therefore, quality, considerably. This fact must be kept in mind when associating a certain stone with a particular group. It is certainly not the overall appearance visible to the naked eye or with a hand lens which decides the origin of a stone. A possible origin is, on the contrary, proved only by a most careful investigation of all the properties and characteristics carried out by an experienced gemologist using modern scientific equipment. And if there is any doubt or ambiguity, an independent and serious scientist would not issue the report. I would appreciate it very much if the current and future customers of SSEF would understand and accept this policy, especially in cases where our result does not conform with your expectations. In some cases we cannot issue a certificate of origin; in others it turns out differently than what you expected.
I hope to have illustrated by this contribution the possibilities, techniques and the philosophy which governs our work at SSEF, regarding both colored gem reports and, as a supplement, the indications of origin.
We are currently using two different types of phrases when we issue an origin report at SSEF. If the stone shows commonly known and widely accepted diagnostic features, leading us to be very certain of the origin, we make the following statement on the report:
According to your request for an indication of origin, we confirm that the ruby described in the gemstone report mentioned above, shows inclusions as well as physical and chemical properties which, based on present gemological knowledge, are characteristic of a ruby from Burma.
In cases where the stone contains, among commonly accepted characteristic features, those recently observed and certified in our laboratory but not yet published, we use the following expression:
According to your request for an indication of origin, we confirm that the sapphire described in the gemstone report mentioned above, shows inclusions as well as physical and chemical properties, which, in our opinion, are characteristic of a sapphire from Kashmir.
I add to this letter a couple of document copies related with origin determination from SSEF. These contain all cases, including treated stones. I hope they are useful for your work. But again I want to stress that it is the trade who wants us to do these origin determinations. Personally I would prefer to omit origin designations, since they do not prove a certain quality or color of a stone. On the other hand, the buyer should be responsible for what he is spending his money on. He should take care by himself and provide his own basic knowledge, not depending only on the merchant’s or seller’s opinion.
Definition: Origin = geographical place where a gemstone is situated.
This is either the primary deposit in the parent rock or a secondary deposit where the gemstones have been accumulated after decomposition of the parent rock. Since the term Burma, Pailin and Kashmir have a geographical meaning, they should not be used to express a gemstone color type, because it is common knowledge that a particular deposit may produce different shades of colors, some of which may be found in other deposits, as well.
The need for certification of a gemstone’s origin seems to be limited to only a few species or varieties of gems, and to a small group of quite famous deposits. In certain cases, a cut stone can express its place of origin through its physical and chemical properties and by its inclusions and growth structure, as long as these are clearly distinguishable from all other types. Thus these properties must be unique, either alone or in combination. The greater the number of individual and characteristic properties found in a particular stone, the more reliable is the determination of origin. Valuable characteristics should not only positively testify to a certain origin, but the same time excludes other origin possibilities.
Because of the above, experts involved in origin determination must be aware not only of the properties and characteristics of gems from famous sources, but of the properties and characteristics of all other similar sources. Only the exclusive features, those which are unique to a particular deposit can be called diagnostic properties.
Depending on the complexity of the formation of the gem crystals and on the geologic environment, the type and number of characteristics can be quite varied. Formation of gems requires some indispensable main conditions without which the gem cannot grow, as well as side conditions which can influence the growth but are not essential to the growth. Some of these main and minor conditions which can influence the properties and characteristics of gems include:
- availability of the main constituent chemical elements, and the growth speed.
- the types of available trace elements, and their concentrations.
- transport processes and the transport media involved.
- the type of energy source involved in formation (intrusive pegmatite, metamorphic, etc.)
- pressure from free oxygen.
- cooling rate after formation.
- deformation history of the parent rock and the growing crystal.
- protogenetic inclusions, reflecting the parent rock.
- syngenetic inclusions, reflecting the transport medium and genetic formation type.
All of these factors can influence the individual characteristics of a gemstone crystal, resulting in differences in:
- the size and shape of crystals, and their growth zoning.
- color, color homogeneity, color variations.
- trace element mixture (including invisible trace elements).
- solid inclusions and twinning.
- the state of healed fissures (i.e. fingerprints), geometry and degree of restoration.
- nature of fillings in negative crystal voids.
- composition of fluid inclusions.
What sort of diagnostic origin information can we collect from a cut gemstone?
Characteristic features:
- Microscopic investigation
Color and growth zoning relative to the crystallographic structure, color inhomogeneity, twinning type (s), internal strain, observation of type and distribution of solid and fluid/gas inclusions, type of healing fissures.
- Physical and optical properties
Specific gravity, refractive indices, double refraction (birefringence), fluorescent behavior, absorption spectroscopy (UV, VIS, IR), spin resonance spectroscopy, composition of fluids and minimum temperature/pressure estimation (heat/freezing stage microscope).
- Chemical determination
Trace element determination by energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence analysis (EDS-XFA), amount or relative ratio of trace elements present (e.g. Ti, Fe, Cr, V, Ga, etc.), chemical analysis of inclusions by electron beam instruments (scanning electron microscope, electron microprobe).
Some of the observed and collected characteristics are not restricted to a certain deposit, but in combination may be of diagnostic value. Those observations which are unique for a special deposit are the most important diagnostic features in regard to origin determination. Successful origin determination involves the following steps:
Observation → Comparison → Interpretation
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Scrutiny Comprehension Prudence
How can we get reliable basic knowledge about materials of definite known origin?
The most simple answer to this question is to collect samples directly at the mine or source. In many cases, though, this is not possible, since the source may be exhausted, or located in an inaccessible location. Therefore we must collect our reference material from a safe source, like a museum, an old collection, etc. Information on gemstone sources can also be obtained from books and publications. Many historical gemstone sources are discussed in reference books. Geographical maps give specific information on the type of deposit, scientific publications reveal the properties of the respective material, chemical analyses of the gemstones and their inclusions are published. All observations must be in agreement with the known facts, e.g. trace elements with spectroscopic analyses, inclusions with geology, etc.
From all this information we gain a very complex view of a gemstone deposit and its production. The more material we investigate, the more dense our network becomes. We are even able to add new observations to the earlier information, building upon it. Sharing and discussing new information with knowledgeable colleagues in the same field provides an added check to our results. But it is still important to revise and recheck the fundamentals of the science by basic research and study of the literature for information on new sources and new techniques. Stagnation is dangerous.
Limitations in the determination of origin
As I have pointed out at the beginning, we use differences in properties as a means of discrimination. Properties which are repeated in stones from more than one source are not valued as diagnostic characteristics, but can nevertheless be helpful in excluding other localities which do not possess these properties. As an example, a certain shade of blue does not prove a certain origin, nor does a misty turbidity. But the misty turbidity in combination with the absence of rutile needles points towards a group of possible origins and excludes some other possibilities of sapphire origins. Within the group of possible origins we may come to a definite source, as long as the stone itself contains enough further evidence pointing towards its origin. It may, for example, exhibit a distinctive absorption curve or spectrum never seen in stones from other localities. At the same time it may show included crystals (identified by an electron beam instrument, which are found only that specific source. These inclusions would, therefore, exclude all other source possibilities.
Origin determination done by the SSEF are not dependent upon a single characteristics only, but are based on at least three independent diagnostic features. Our possibilities are restricted if:
- the properties found in an individual stone may also be found in stones from several localities.
- the stone is found to be free from diagnostic features.
- the possible tests which can be performed is reduced, as, for example, in mounted stones.
- the knowledge base on the type of stone being tested is not broad enough.
Sometimes gemstone deposits and mining areas cross geographic borders, such as the corundum deposits in Kenya/Tanzania and Thailand/Cambodia. In many cases, a producing country may contain different deposits which also vary from one another in the characteristics of the stones produced, such as the corundum deposits in Sri Lanka and Montana (USA).
Many persons in the gem trade have far too little knowledge of the actual range of material coming from particular sources. Even within a single mine, the stones can vary in size, color, transparency and therefore, quality, considerably. This fact must be kept in mind when associating a certain stone with a particular group. It is certainly not the overall appearance visible to the naked eye or with a hand lens which decides the origin of a stone. A possible origin is, on the contrary, proved only by a most careful investigation of all the properties and characteristics carried out by an experienced gemologist using modern scientific equipment. And if there is any doubt or ambiguity, an independent and serious scientist would not issue the report. I would appreciate it very much if the current and future customers of SSEF would understand and accept this policy, especially in cases where our result does not conform with your expectations. In some cases we cannot issue a certificate of origin; in others it turns out differently than what you expected.
I hope to have illustrated by this contribution the possibilities, techniques and the philosophy which governs our work at SSEF, regarding both colored gem reports and, as a supplement, the indications of origin.
We are currently using two different types of phrases when we issue an origin report at SSEF. If the stone shows commonly known and widely accepted diagnostic features, leading us to be very certain of the origin, we make the following statement on the report:
According to your request for an indication of origin, we confirm that the ruby described in the gemstone report mentioned above, shows inclusions as well as physical and chemical properties which, based on present gemological knowledge, are characteristic of a ruby from Burma.
In cases where the stone contains, among commonly accepted characteristic features, those recently observed and certified in our laboratory but not yet published, we use the following expression:
According to your request for an indication of origin, we confirm that the sapphire described in the gemstone report mentioned above, shows inclusions as well as physical and chemical properties, which, in our opinion, are characteristic of a sapphire from Kashmir.
I add to this letter a couple of document copies related with origin determination from SSEF. These contain all cases, including treated stones. I hope they are useful for your work. But again I want to stress that it is the trade who wants us to do these origin determinations. Personally I would prefer to omit origin designations, since they do not prove a certain quality or color of a stone. On the other hand, the buyer should be responsible for what he is spending his money on. He should take care by himself and provide his own basic knowledge, not depending only on the merchant’s or seller’s opinion.
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