King Of Raconteurs

2007: I am a Harry Winston fan. I collect articles written on Harry Winston because they are truly priceless. He has a remarkable way of telling real stories + he is one of a kind jeweler who had the fortune and good luck to meet interesting people from around the world. He is the king of diamonds. It's educational and entertaining.

(via International Diamond Annual, Vol.1, 1971) A N Wilson writes:

Prince Of Diamonds
Some anecdotes of Harry Winston

Harry Winston is not merely the prince of diamond merchants. He is a king amongst raconteurs. His repertoire of anecdotes about diamonds is imperial. Prince and potentate, with diamonds in their crowns, have been his clients and his confidantes. Both the crowned and uncrowned heads of Europe and of Asia wear the jewels that Harry Winston found and sold to them. And a great sparkle of joy, as brilliant as the gleam from his latest tiara, shines in Harry’s eyes as he turns to tell you his next story of how he sold a whopping big diamond t o the King of Siam. The great thing about Harry Winston is that he enjoys himself. When he recalls an anecdote, he lives again every moment of it and he enjoys the fun of it all over again.

I sat entranced in his secluded office in New York’s Fifth Avenue as Harry Winston responded to my request for some of his best stories.

“You know,” he said. “I sometimes feel I’m a bit of a fool. When I get up in the morning and shave and look in the mirror, I often say to myself ‘What sort of a crass idiot are you? Here is a crass idiot if ever there were one! Why do you do this? Why do you go on doing this? Why do you fret yourself employing three hundred people in that building of yours and another whole floor of them across the way and something like 3000 cutters in several different countries—why do you do it? Harry, there’s a sickness in you.’

“And, of course, it is so, it is a sickness. But it does not need any medicine. It is in the blood.”

You can sense that sly humor and the fun in this man as he talks like that. But you can also recognize the enjoyment he gets out of diamonds and out of what he has done and still does with them.

“There it is—it’s in the blood. I rejoice in this. I love diamonds. They are my life. And this is how I live still—a little bit of madman, no doubt, as some people will say: but I’m quite content to be like this, so long as I am enjoying my life as much as I do.”

Whisper has it that Harry has turned seventy. Nobody really knows and he would not let me into the secret. But whatever his age, he’s still a dynamic man. He still does a great deal of selling himself, dealing personally with clients of long standing. He likes to go on exercising the long-range judgment, the experience and the intuition which, together, have made him the greatest diamond merchant in the world.

“You’ve got to have ‘guts’ and you’ve got have ‘wits’ in this damned business,” he says. And he always returns to the point in the conversations I have had with him, that it is no use dealing in this diamond business unless you have a love of diamonds and of gems as a whole. Farouk of Egypt was one of Harry Winston’s clients. Farouk was always a great purchaser of diamonds, occasionally for cash, more often on credit.

“Farouk was an interesting man himself. We had many amusing and exciting conversations together,” recalls Harry. “As a king and a client I thought he must be reliable, for the he had the wealth of Egypt at his command.”

On one occasion—in 1951—Winston made a deal with Farouk, who bought a 700000 dollar emerald. It was for Farouk’s new bride, Queen Narriman. Soon afterwards Harry and his wife, Edna, went with their children to the south of France for their usual holiday. Farouk and Queen Narriman were at Cannes and they invited the Winstons to dinner. The beautiful Narriman wore the emerald. It was a very pleasant and happy occasion. Then the Winstons reciprocated by inviting the royal couple to dinner at their lovely home on a promontory looking out over the Mediterranean. Farouk sent his bodyguards to surround the residence and his coffeemaker to superintend the production of the meal.

“It was all great success and, as things do on such occasions, proceedings continued well into the wee small hours. Sometime about four in the morning, the early dawn was coming and Farouk and I walked out on to the terrace. The morning star was there in the east—in glowing brilliance. At that time I happened to have a magnificent diamond, which I had called ‘The Star of the East’. It was a great gem—a pear-shape of great beauty, of the finest color and finest quality. Eighty-three carats! I loved it dearly. I told Farouk about it. And one thing led to another—the stars in Narriman’s eyes—and Farouk said he would like to buy the diamond. We settled on $1,125,000.”

As Harry Winston described the romantic scene, you could just see and hear it all happening.

“I had no reason to doubt the man,” continued Harry Winston. “After all, he was a king—and I had done business with him before. So I agreed to sell and Farouk was delighted. The diamond was delivered to him. I’d said to Farouk ‘I understand your circumstances at the moment—you can pay me at your convenience.’

“A year went by—and the king’s convenience had not turned up. One day in July 1052, I was at my country home outside New York. A call came through. It was from Alexandria. Farouk was on the line. He said he had a 55-carat emerald which had belonged to Catherine the Great. In view of his debt to me of nearly two million dollars, he wondered whether I would have arbitration about the value of this emerald and accept it in part payment of his debt to me. And then the line went dead.”

Later on Winston heard the story of what had happened. The American Ambassador to Egypt, Mr Jefferson Cafferey, had gone to Alexandria to say farewell to Farouk on his abdication and departure from Egypt in the royal yacht. As Mr Cafferey took his leave, Farouk pressed into the Ambassador’s hand the Catherine the Great emerald. It came to America in the diplomatic pouch, with the message from Farouk that “rest will follow”. But “The Star of the East” did not follow—nor did its equivalent in cash.

In due course, Farouk set up his court in exile in the Isle of Capri. He left Harry Winston know that ‘The Star of the East’ had been left behind in the palace safe in Cairo. Winston took legal action, which led to a search of the safe deposits in the palace. But the diamond was missing. Then legal action was taken against the Egyptian government and Winston won his case. But Colonel Nasser ignored the court’s injunction and not a sou was paid. Some time later Harry was at a party in the south of France where he met a cousin of Farouk’s, who had been Minister of Finance during Farouk’s regime. The cousin said that Farouk, in exile, had nevertheless been getting a lot of gold out of Egypt, shipping out his assets quite freely. This alerted Winston to the possibility of recouping some of the debt Farouk owed.

“I have since employed a very smart investigator,” remarked Harry Winston, ‘and the story is not ended.”

One immediately understands from the way Harry says this that some quite remarkable development can be expected to happen in the quite near future.

But what a setting all this is for one of the greatest best sellers of all time! There are all the ingredients—a king, a beautiful queen, a great world famous merchant, a royal honeymoon at Cannes, a mansion on a promontory overlooking the Mediterranean, the royal coffeemaker, the royal yacht at Alexandria, the American ambassador, the diplomatic pouch, the Isle of Capri, beautiful and historic emeralds, special agents—and, at the center of them all, this lovely 83 carat pear-shaped gem, ‘The Star of the East’. I had always thought these things were the figments of an imagination as lively as the late Ian Fleming’s—but no, here they are in a real life drama. Stories like this bubble out of Harry Winston, if you can get him in the mood and with the time to tell them. I egged him on.

“Yes,” he said, “there was also a certain king of Saudi Arabia—a man of very, very great wealth—from oil, you know. He had a very large court—four wives and something like eighty concubines. He was a considerable exponent of the art of love. They were all young girls. A connoisseur he was. The king became a client of mine—he needed many jewels.

“I told the king at one of our meetings that I had a diamond of perfect quality—a 62-carat pear-shape—but it was not for sale. I loved it so much I’d done something I’d never done before—I’d called it ‘the Harry Winston Diamond’. The king became excited. He said:

“Harry, I must have it’ and he went on insisting. And, anxious lest I should change my mind, after I had been persuaded to sell, he asked that the diamond be wrapped up there and then and handed over to him.”

Eighteen months later the king visited Boston from Saudi Arabia for treatment to the retina of an eye.

“I was summoned to Boston to see the king. He needed more diamonds and I sold him two million dollars worth of jewelry. And when we had concluded our deals, the king passed over the table a small parcel. It was in the familiar wrapping of our house. It had not been opened. I recognized it.

“Harry,” said the king. “I hope you will credit me with this against the jewels I’ve just bought from you.” I was astonished. “But you can’t give this back,” I said in my amazement, “It’s the most beautiful diamond.” The king looked at me quizzically.

“Harry,” he said, “I’m fond of living, just as you are. I want to go on living. If I gave this stone to one of my four wives, well, my life would not be worth a moment’s purchase.”

“As I was taking my leave, the king asked: “By the way, Harry, if you have three other gems just like that, let me know.”

Harry Winston knows a good story when he has one, and he would certainly not paint the lily.

“But Shakespeare also says, ‘tis very silly
To gild refined gold, or paint the lily.”

But there is a sequel to the story of the king of Saudi Arabia that I think justifies its being added here.

“I always believe in fate,” said Harry Winston. “There’s a great deal of luck in this world of ours. But it’s not all luck. Foresight and a lot of other things go into it too.”

“Anyhow, about three weeks later, in the normal course of business, I was asked to value some estate jewelry. It had belonged to the late Mary Byron Foy, a daughter of Jack Chrysler, the motor car tycoon. I opened the parcel and, to my amazement, I found what appeared to be an exact replica of ‘the Harry Winston Diamond’, the 62-carat pear-shape the King of Saudi Arabia had handed back to me. I rubbed my eyes. But it was a diamond all right—not a replica. It was a perfect match. I called for my diamond to compare the two. They were perfectly matched. But mine was 62 carats and this was 60 carats. The difference was so infinitesimal—it was negligible. They had to be a pair of earrings—they were made for each other. I bought the Foy diamond and made a pair of earrings. “In due course some old clients of mine got to hear that I had something special. They were Mr and Mrs Killam, of Canada. When Mrs Killam came to see them, she burst out: ‘These are mine’. And so they were—immediately.

“If you believe in fate, here’s a perfect example of how it can work to your advantage most unexpectedly.”

And then Harry began philosophizing a bit. “It’s not just fate or luck. You have to work hard—and work hard following your fate, pursuing your luck and taking advantage of what comes your way. You need imagination, perception, intelligence, perseverance—and luck. And you must know what you are doing.

“There’s something about jewels—they grow on you. You get to love diamonds, you get to love jewels—emeralds, rubies too. You love them for themselves. You life wraps itself round them. And, although it sometimes breaks my heart to do so, I enjoy selling diamonds. I find it a very absorbing and entertaining pastime.”

When I remarked that Harry Winston shared with the late Sir Ernest Oppenheimer a love of diamonds for themselves, Harry Winston’s personal assistant, Jill Ciraldo, chimed in: “You know, Mr Winston plays with diamonds as if they were toys.” And Harry nodded—delighted.

Truman Capote

To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.

I liked this one.

Manhattan

Greatest Opening Film Lines (Manhattan - 1979):

Chapter One. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion.' Uh, no, make that: 'He-he...romanticized it all out of proportion. Now...to him...no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.' Ahhh, now let me start this over...

I liked it.

The Toyota Way

Good Books: (via Emergic) Jeffrey Liker’s book The Toyota Way defines Toyota’s philosophy and operations + the essence of the organization. The book is great + full of ideas + I don't think it's that easy to execute. In my view the concept is a magical accumulation of smart work ethics + embedded culture factor + that otherness.

From the book description:
Fewer man-hours. Less inventory. The highest quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer. In factories around the globe, Toyota consistently raises the bar for manufacturing, product development, and process excellence. The result is an amazing business success story: steadily taking market share from price-cutting competitors, earning far more profit than any other automaker, and winning the praise of business leaders worldwide.

The Toyota Way reveals the management principles behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability. Dr. Jeffrey Liker, a renowned authority on Toyota's Lean methods, explains how you can adopt these principles--known as the "Toyota Production System" or "Lean Production"--to improve the speed of your business processes, improve product and service quality, and cut costs, no matter what your industry.

Drawing on his extensive research on Toyota, Dr. Liker shares his insights into the foundational principles at work in the Toyota culture. He explains how the Toyota Production System evolved as a new paradigm of manufacturing excellence, transforming businesses across industries. You'll learn how Toyota fosters employee involvement at all levels, discover the difference between traditional process improvement and Toyota's Lean improvement, and learn why companies often think they are Lean--but aren't.

The Toyota Way, explains Toyota's unique approach to Lean--the 14 management principles and philosophy that drive Toyota's quality and efficiency-obsessed culture. You'll gain valuable insights that can be applied to any organization and any business process, whether in services or manufacturing. Professor Jeffrey Liker has been studying Toyota for twenty years, and was given unprecedented access to Toyota executives, employees and factories, both in Japan and the United States, for this landmark work. The book is full of examples of the 14 fundamental principles at work in the Toyota culture, and how these principles create a culture of continuous learning and improvement. You'll discover how the right combination of long-term philosophy, process, people, and problem solving can transform your organization into a Lean, learning enterprise--the Toyota Way.

The 14 Toyota Way Principles discussed by Liker are:
- Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy even at the expense of short-term financial goals.
- Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface.
- Use pull systems to avoid overproduction.
- Level out the workload. (Work like the tortoise, not the hare.)
- Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time.
- Standardized tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement.
- Use visual control so no problems are hidden.
- Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes.
- Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others.
- Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy.
- Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve.
- Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation.
- Make decisions slowly, by consensus, thoroughly considering all options ; implement decisions rapidly.
- Become a learning organization through relentless reflection and continuous improvement.

More info @ Business Week / Jeffrey Liker

The Tea Towels That Became Van Gogh Originals

Charlotte Higgins writes about Van Gogh tea towel + the X-ray techniques used to track its authenticity + its historical significance + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2157890,00.html

Christie’s And Sotheby’s: On The Champagne Trail

Kelly Devine Thomas writes about Christie’s + Sotheby’s creative marketing tactics in the dog-eat-dog world of art business + other viewpoints @ http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1890

The Function Of The Broker

2007: I don't know how many times I have this article. The more I read the more I enjoy it because I like the old generation concepts + their philosophy. Vivian Prins is well-known in the diamond circle. He is from a different generation. His generation did business the old-fashioned way. The diamond brokers knew the buyers and sellers. It was not transaction but relationship concept. I wish todays generation are the same. Times have changed. The diamond industry has changed + there has been a tectonic shift in everything with new markets + new ways of doing business. The personal touch of the old generation isn't there anymore. This article is educational + Vivian shares his views on the role of a diamond broker.

(via International Diamond Annual, Vol.1, 1971) Vivian C Prins writes:

Those who are familiar with practice in diamond cutting centers may believe that it is a fairly simple matter to become a diamond manufacturer and to be supplied by one of the De Beers organizations. Anybody who has undertaken the task of manufacturing diamonds will, however, know, in fact how very difficult it is to become a regular client of De Beers. Nevertheless, a manufacturer who envisages a long-term operation on a substantial scale recognizes that the one source of raw material in diamonds which may be reliable will be from an outlet managed by one of the De Beers subsidiaries. In practice, the demand for diamonds from the Diamond Trading Company in London and Industrial Diamonds (Sales) Ltd, the main outlets of rough diamonds in the world, is normally so considerable that only a small fraction of those who would like to be supplied can regularly be offered goods. The intricacies of obtaining such supplies in the first place are such that anybody who is interested, whether dealer or manufacturer, seeks the services of a firm which has specialized knowledge of the process of obtaining from the ‘syndicate’ what is usually known as ‘a sight’.

These special firms are syndicate brokers, sometimes an individual and sometimes a whole organization, who have over the years made it their concern to know what is going on in their particular field of the diamond business. There are ten such firms of whom three are relatively large, and between them they handle the major part of the business.

It is to be supposed that the original brokers, whose work in this field began some 80 years ago under conditions very different from today, existed because the De Beers organization was looking for clients and seeking buyers for its goods. During the last century the broker, therefore, represented both the buyer and the seller, normally obtaining a commission from each side. The state of the diamond business at that time was relatively primitive; since then the De Beers organization, as well as the world diamond trade, has developed enormously. During this period the role of the broker has also evolved from the relatively simple function of bringing buyer and seller together—possibly by having a personal family or business relationship with each party—into a major business where the responsibilities and the services are greatly expanded.

The function of today’s broker is still best described as bringing the buyer and the seller together, and it is essential that he has the fullest confidence of both sides. The Diamond Trading Company, as well as the buyer, must have complete assurance of the broker’s integrity, and the nature of the business also demands as much secrecy and discretion as may be expected of a physician.

One of the big changes in the situation is that, whereas 80 years ago, De Beers were looking for clients, today the Central Selling Organization is able to dispose of their goods readily, and far more people are seeking to become clients of that organization than can be supplied. Thus the broker must do more than merely satisfy the Central Selling Organization that they have a client of adequate financial means and of sound commercial ethics and standards. They must convince the London executives that the client has a major role to play in the diamond business, that he will handle his goods in the manner in which the De Beers organization wish to see them handled, that the business in question is likely to have a long-term future. Therefore, it may sometimes be necessary not only for sons of the principals to be in the business, but to express the intention that the grandsons might well join, too! In other words, the business must be ‘just right’, neither too small nor, in many ways, too large, since the De Beers company have always prudently preferred to split their assets among a reasonable number of solid firms rather than a very few ‘super’ manufacturers or very big dealers. As in all things in life, there are occasional exceptions to this rule!

It is through this maze of rather precise requirements that the broker will lead his client, and with the cooperation of all parties may eventually arrive at a point where the client receives his longed-for sight. It is not an easy road for any of the parties, and just as much as being involved in the technical aspects of obtaining a sight for his client, a broker may find that his tact and abilities are stretched to the limit in persuading his client to exercise patience, when, despite meeting all the normal qualifications, a sight is still not forthcoming. This is particularly true when a competitor has for no apparent reasons been more successful!

Obtaining a client is only a first step. Usually a considerable amount of work has been involved which often includes two or more trips to the client in his home country each year. Despite this, no fee or charge of any kind is made by the broker for these efforts. The broker’s eventual remuneration will depend on a commission from business actually done, and this is sole source of income.

Once the client has become a regular buyer at The Diamond Trading Company he will need to apply for each sight; he will wish to be informed as to various changes in prices, assortments, conditions existing at that company, and he will need to have this information very quickly because it could easily affect pending decisions regarding purchases and sales of his goods. The broker will look after these matters for his client, who may also wish to discuss general world conditions in the diamond market and thus assess his own requirements of rough diamonds. Certainly from time to time the client’s requirements may change, so that once again his broker will be pleading, possibly for more goods, or an additional variety of goods, or, perhaps, for a related company in an entirely different country. Naturally, when the buyer comes to London the broker is at his disposal. He will be present at talks with The Diamond Trading Company. He will also help his client with the purchase of his sight, responding whenever asked for analyses or advice concerning the goods offered—and the broker’s experience must enable him to be a sound judge in these matters. On occasions, the client is unable to come personally. Travel difficulties, illness, family affairs, or just pressures of business may make it difficult for him to come to London. The broker then takes over the whole task of making the purchase on behalf of the client—quite a major responsibility when it is remembered that the purchase may frequently involve several hundred thousand dollars worth of goods. The writer can recall once receiving what to a broker must be the ultimate accolade, when a client indicated that the purchase made was ‘even more satisfactory than when he himself attended’.

What has so far been written on this subject may give the reader some idea of the basic activity of a broker’s function. What is much more difficult to convey is the personal relationship with the client, and the broker’s special understanding of the issues involved. It is this side of the work which makes the syndicate broker’s task exceptional. In general, clients expect their brokers to understand their problems so fully that the broker can give advice. Indeed, if the relationship is as it should be without fault. Those who know the diamond business may well also realize that psychology and approach to business in the Pelikaanstraat or on 47th Street may be very different from the attitudes in the offices of The Diamond Trading Company. It is the broker’s task to smooth out these differences and to avoid any misunderstandings that could be caused. It is also natural that many diamond people have an inadequate command of the English language. Most of them were born in Belgium or Poland and the competent broker must be capable of speaking to his client in a language which he understands and of being an interpreter when discussions take place with The Diamond Trading Company. A further small but valuable service must be given to the client. He must be able to use his broker’s office as his own, receiving any kind of secretarial, telephone or telex service which he would require in his own office, and very often he receives, in addition to this, assistance in arranging his travel and shopping plans! The syndicate broker is anxious to do everything to make his client feel at home.

It can be seen that, with the diamond business operating on an important scale in Antwerp, Tel Aviv, Bombay and New York, and on a lesser scale in several other countries, a syndicate broker not only requires an alert and efficient office organization to help take care of administration and communications, but he must himself be prepared to travel almost every month to meet his clients in different parts of the world, and to be up-to-date with the situation in general, and, of course, to study his clients special needs. During these travels the broker will see many factories and have many conferences. He will himself ask many questions, and many enquiries will be made of him, but through his constant activity, always coming to a climax at the London sight, he will play his special role in lubricating the wheels of the diamond business.

The More Sensitive You Are, The More Certain You Are To Be Brutalised

(via Guardian Unlimited) Truman Capote's interview of Marlon Brando in Kyoto, Japan, 1957 @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/greatinterviews/story/0,,2154887,00.html

Marlon Brando is one my favorite actors + his ability to morph and totally internally reflect into unique characters is just amazing. Sometimes I watch his movies several times just to understand the character (s). The interview with Truman Capote also reveals his philosophy about life, people, cultures, friends, family and the business of acting itself. I thoroughly enjoyed it.