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Pala International will be at the ICA International Gem Show, which is billed as “the first luxury B2B gem show tailored especially for the loose colored gemstone industry featuring the world’s 120 most prominent colored stone merchants.”
We are pleased to announce that we will be sharing display space with our good friends, the Gobin brothers (whom we recently visited at the Sainte-Marie show). Pala will be bringing a selection of our finest colored stones and a collection of exquisite gem crystal specimens. For more information visit the International Gem Show website.
Visit the Pala International Show Schedule for future events. [back to top]
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| Grand Lobby of the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, site of the ICA International Gem Show. (Artist’s rendering © 2007 – Rotana Hotels) |
Pala’s Bill Larson recalls dealing with collectors Jim and Mary Dyer in the 1960s. They would visit Pala with Josie Scripps on their return to San Diego County from Brazil. Bill remembers with excitement a large aquamarine find that filled the Dyers’ living room. But the price of $400 for some of the first pieces was beyond most collectors at the time. He did manage to purchase a blue 2 x 1.5-inch frosted gem, terminated crystal for $50, probably worth $1500 today. The prize piece in the Dyers’ collection was a pink tourmaline necklace, ring, and earrings set from the famous Himalaya Mine in San Diego County’s Mesa Grande District (in the possession of Pala International today).
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| Sweet. This pink tourmaline suite was assembled from material culled at San Diego County’s Himalaya MIne nearly five decades ago. Price: $40,000 for the suite. (Photo: Wimon Manorotkul) |
The Dyers got permission to dig in the Himalaya mine’s dumps from owner Ralph Potter. They eventually dug deep enough to get below the dump and find a layer that contained alluvial tourmalines, washed down over the ages—probably the same layer in which the local Indians found the tourmaline gem nodules that eventually sparked the interest of George F. Kunz to explore San Diego’s gems. The Dyers collected many of these pink tourmaline gem nodules, then brought their self-collected prizes to Brazil where they were eventually cut and mounted into this amazing jewelry set.
Bill reminisces: “The lovely parure consisting of a necklace, earrings, and ring was custom designed and cut, and assembled in Brazil in approximately 1960. They were featured on the cover of Lapidary Journal in September 1960. The suite was displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1973.”
Here are the specs on the suite:
Interested? Call (telephone numbers below), or email us. [back to top]
Last month we reported on a kunzite find at the Elizabeth R. mine, in the Pala mining district of northeast San Diego County. A limited amount was facet-grade, and faceted it was. These pieces have a beautiful, natural color. Pala is a designated broker for this new material.
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| Natural faceted kunzite. These stones, 28 carats (above left) and 57 carats, are from material produced by the Elizabeth R. (Photos: Jason Stephenson, top; Wimon Manorotkul, bottom) |
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The Elizabeth R. mine is situated just above the Ocean View mine which we have been reporting on recently. See the below links to read more about the other recent finds in the Pala Mining District. [back to top]
Pala has been aware of the lead-glass filled rubies being leeched into the market over the past few years. It became more apparent at this summer’s JA New York show that what was once a trickle is now more of a flood, with piles of these mutant rubies being offered for a few dollars a carat by several vendors around the show.
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| Leaded: Lead-glass filled rubies from 0.50 to 2.78 carats. (Photo: Mia Dixon) |
We’ve received private emails from weary consumers who, after some buyer’s remorse set in, were directed to Pala’s website for insight. Even from the crude pictures sent to us by email, it’s clear some buyers have purchased lead-glass filled rubies over the Internet, from jewelry television channels, and from some some dubious characters in Afghanistan. If you or someone close to you is in the military stationed in Afghanistan or surrounding countries please get the word out: Buyer beware!
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| Flashy: Blue and orange flash effect seen along structural fractures, a key identifying feature of glass-filled rubies. (Photo: Wimon Manorotkul) |
Pala has taken some some photos (macro and micro) to help recognize these disguised rubies. The internal characteristics seem to be consistent with the lead glass filled rubies reported by GIA and AGL. See our previous discussion of the issue and the AGL report. Also refer to the following for more research and findings.
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| All wet: Lead glass filled rubies immersed, showing bubbles and color concentrations along fractures. (Photo: Wimon Manorotkul) |
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| Bubble trouble: Gas bubbles like that shown above, are indicative of lead-glass filling, and are easily seen with a microscope. (Photo: Wimon Manorotkul) |
These and other photomicrographs are posted in our inclusions gallery, The Internal World of Gemstones. [back to top]
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| Arcing needle-like inclusions are unique to ruby from Winza, Tanzania, according to gem labs. (Photo courtesy GAAJ) |
New ruby material from Winza, Tanzania has been the topic of much discussion in the industry since it first surfaced last November. The stones made a debut at April’s Baselworld show. Identification characteristics set this material apart from that of other Tanzania localities, which have produced ruby since at least 1950 (Hughes, Ruby & Sapphire, p. 410). Winza lies about 300 km. east of Dar es Salaam, in the region of Dodoma. Here’s a roundup of the various reports and news items on this ruby.
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| The Baselworld Palace, the entryway pavilion at this year’s show. Debuting at the show were the Winza rubies, which prompted gemologists to do some investigating. (Photo courtesy MCH Swiss Exhibition [Basel] Ltd.) |
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As we prepare for next month’s ICA International Gem Show in Dubai, we noted the prominent role played by the United Arab Emirates in Pakistan’s gemstone and jewelry exports.
Third-quarter gemstone export figures show an increase of more than 55 percent over the same period last year (Jul–Feb), according to the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan. (Provisional figures for the entire year, Jul 07–Jun 08, are more modest: a 36 percent increase over last year.) While exports to Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore were halved, exports to the U.A.E. rose 930 percent.
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When compared against the share of total Pakistan exports, gemstones are a miniscule .05 percent, at only $5.7 million, up two hundredths of a percent from last year.
Jewelry exports, which have a 1.24 percent share of the export total, rose a whopping 564 percent over last year’s first three quarters. Provisional year-end figures are projected to revise the total downward, to a 382 percent increase.
By way of comparison… Together, Pakistan’s gemstone and jewelry exports are projected to total about $210 million, less than a third of Burma’s $647 million for 4/07–3/08. [back to top]
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| This untreated ruby from Burma is from inventory that predates the recently enacted import ban. And it’s available. |
Following Cyclone Nargis’s devastation last May, a decline in tourism to Yangon has caused gem sales in the city to slump, according to several merchants and tour guides interviewed by Mizzima News in an August 29 report.
Mizzima evidently didn’t speak with the folks at Yangon’s Myanmar Gems Museum, who told Associated Press, as reported on August 23, that demand in one museum shop is so brisk that it can barely be met. This echoes an undated Mizzima News “Quote of the Day” from a Mandalay gem merchant, which we mentioned last month: “Our buyers are almost all from China, Russia, the Gulf, Thailand, India and the European Union, and we can barely keep up with their demand.” [back to top]
The August 29 Mizzima News report also attached a sales figure to the June 24–July 4 special sale of gems, jade, and pearls: over $120 million. And a re-reading of a previously cited Myanmar Times item revealed the figure from the 45th Gems Emporium: $153 million.
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| Pearls also are featured at the auctions in Burma. This photo, showing the variety in color and size of cultured south sea pearls from Mergui, is from an extensive article by Vincent Pardieu. (Photo courtesy Vincent Pardieu, FieldGemology.org) |
Based on these new figures, we’ve updated our Burma Gem Sales and Statistics page to include a newly estimated total for 1964–July 2008: over $1.55 billion.
The same Mizzima News item announced dates for the upcoming 17th Mid-Year Emporium: October 4–16. The item stated that the 46th Gems Emporium will be held, as usual, in January, with dates to be announced later. [back to top]
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| Rocky road to ruin. Photos from Mogok Media’s blog posted August 17 show the scale of earth made unstable by incessant rain. |
[back to top]
— End September Newsletter • Published 9/21/08 —
2008.3 | 2008.2 | 2008.1 | 2007.3 | 2007.2 | 2007.1 | 2006.3 | 2006.2 | 2006.1
2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000
Note: Palagems.com selects much of its material in the interest of fostering a stimulating discourse on the topics of gems, gemology, and the gemstone industry. Therefore the opinions expressed here are not necessarily those held by the proprietors of Palagems.com. We welcome your feedback.
Pala International
912 So. Live Oak Park Road 
Fallbrook, CA 92028 USA
Tel: 800-854-1598; 760-728-9121 Fax: 760-728-5827 E-mail: info@palagems.com
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Page updated
October 1, 2008
