Take time to prove yourself
You can’t just wander up with cash and expect to be taken seriously. It takes time and effort to prove you deserve a place in the market.
In Antananarivo, Madagascar, our contact had arranged for dealers to meet with us at our hotel and we were able to set up shop on a large balcony. Most of the cut stone dealers sat at tables, but the rough dealer insisted on taking me into the hotel room. He and four or five of his group pushed a bag of horrible apatite weighing one kilo into my hands. “Buy that,” they said, “or we won’t show you anything else.” It took nearly half an hour for me to finally lose patience and get up. Unless they showed me something worth buying, I was leaving. Then out came a few pieces of better material and I did end up buying one for a fair price.
At the gem market in Ratnapura, Sri Lanka, I was standing on a bridge trying to get a break from the dealers and runners (i.e. those who carry stones for other people). They were so insistent that I felt like I’d brought saltines into a petting zoo enclosure. Everywhere I turned, someone pushed stones into my hands. One man came onto the bridge and handed me a sapphire. I could see the curved straiae without a loupe and passed it back saying, “It’s synthetic.” He kept trying to get me to take it. Finally, a well-dressed man speaking excellent English came up and said, “You’re right. Would you like to see something better?” He and I ended up doing business.
Our broker, however, was offered outstanding alexandrite. I ended up buying it from him days later—”¨I hadn’t seen him being offered the gems right next to me on the bridge! He’d earned his place there and I had not, so he got the good stuff, even though I would have paid more for it.
Proving yourself is key to getting anything worth buying. Everyone would like to sell their bad material for a good price. (Hey, wouldn’t we all like to do that?) Until you convince them you know the difference between good rough and bad, you will likely only be offered the latter.
 Know your stuff
It’s unfortunate to hear North American buyers complain about the lack of ethics in other parts of the world. It’s not that they lack ethics; it’s that the ethical standards are different. In Canada, I’m obligated as the seller to know and to disclose important information about my gems. In much of the developing world, it’s the buyer’s obligation to know what she’s buying. Outright lying—if you can prove it—is wrong, but many people showing gems honestly don’t know what they have, only what they were told.
I’ve been buying in the field for a long time, and still sometimes buy a gemstone I shouldn’t. The stone in the photo at the top of page 3, cheap, and pretty, but I didn’t pay it too much attention, and it was glass. Fortunately, I didn’t spend a lot of money on it.
I travel with a stealthy portable lab and test everything before making an offer. It’s no one’s responsibility but mine to know what I’m buying, and what I should pay for it.
It’s well worth taking some gemmology courses and investing in a few good tools before a trip. If you can’t trust yourself to test a gem you’re buying, only purchase it as a souvenir. It will make a great story to share with your customers back home.
I’ve travelled with colleagues who wanted brokers to guide them, but it isn’t fair to expect that. The brokers are local; they bring me many goods themselves and let smaller sellers come to me in their offices. Beyond that, however, they can’t hold my hand. I’ll be long gone, and they will still be there working with these people. They can’t be expected to tell me something is fake, or too expensive, or too included.
When buying in the field, you’re making quick decisions and spending large amounts of cash with no recourse. Gem lust affects us all. It’s so tempting to buy things, and so easy to get a bad case of buyer’s remorse when we get home. Making lists of what you buy at home, how much it cost, and what you sell it for, can help keep the lust in check.
