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July 2008
In our newsletter this month:
The Price of Gold
New and Interesting Gemstones
New Content at GemSelect
Rare and Unusual Gems
Customer Questions
The Price of Gold
On March 13th, 2008, the price of gold reached a record US $1,000 a troy ounce for the first time. Though the price has fallen a bit since then, gold is still trading at over $910 an ounce in late June. For everyone involved in the gem and jewelry business, whether buyers or sellers, the high price of gold is a major worry.
What's going on in the gold market? Is gold becoming like oil, where the price just continues to go up and up? Is world demand for gold pushing up the price to record levels? If so, who's buying all the gold?
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| Federal Reserve Bank of New York |
Though both gold and oil prices have been rising rapidly along with many other commodities, the demand for gold does not appear to be based on consumer market demand. Gold has some uses in the electronics industry, but for the most part gold is not an industrial metal, unlike copper or platinum. About 70 percent of gold consumption is for jewelry. But when gold prices are very high, gold jewelry sales fall. Since production of gold is steady, that should lead to falling prices, shouldn't it?.
It seems like it should. But gold attracts speculators as well as jewelry buyers. When the financial markets -- traders, mutual funds, hedge funds and so on -- decide to buy gold, they buy it in vast quantities. They don't even need to buy actual gold to affect the gold price; speculators trade in futures and options as well.
Why is so much cash moving into gold? Experts point to the credit crunch set off by out-of-control mortgage lending in the USA and the falling US dollar. Low interest rates, a slowing economy and worries about international oil supplies have apparently led financial institutions to move a lot of cash into the safety of gold.
So is the high gold price just a temporary bubble? There's reason to think that it is, though no one knows how long the bubble will last. The gold price has been high before. In fact the recent $1,000 record is not a record at all. In January 1980, gold reached a price of $850. Adjusted for inflation, that's $2,200 in 2008 dollars! By 1999 the price of gold had fallen all the way back to $250.
Developing countries, especially China and India, are consuming a greater percentage of the world's oil reserves. But the demand for gold is reasonably steady. When the financial markets move cash out of gold and into stocks or bonds or real estate, the price of gold will fall, probably as quickly as it went up. All of us in the gem and jewelry business are looking forward to it.
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| New and Interesting Gems -- updated November 9th |
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Watermelon Tourmaline from Nigeria: Watermelon tourmaline is one of the most distinctive gems in the world. We have just purchased a small number of exquisite pieces from Nigerian with outstanding color and clarity. These are the finest we've seen this year. |
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Boulder Opal from Australia: Boulder Opal is the second most prized form of opal, after black opal. The name derives from the fact that this opal is found embedded in ironstone boulders. Boulder opal is especially attractive because, like the black opal, it has a dark body tone which adds vibrancy to the play of color. We've just purchased a small lot of excellent pieces, in sizes between 4 and 15 carats. |
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Clinohumite from Tanzania: Clinohumite is a rare mineral. It is a member of the humite group of minerals, which includes humite, clinohumite, chondrodite, and norbergite. Only three sources of gem-quality clinohumite are known: the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan, the Taymyr region of northern Siberia and the Mahenge plateau of Tanzania. Usually clinohumite is found in sizes under 1 carat but we just have acquired a small number of new pieces from Tajikistan in the 2-3 carat size. |
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Huge Topaz from Brazil: Gem-quality minerals are sometimes found in exceptionally large sizes. We've acquired some natural topaz from Brazil in sizes between 360 and 507 carats. We currently have 4 pieces in a light champagne color with outstanding clarity (all of been graded IF). Collectors take note. |
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Fluorite from Namibia: Fluorite is said to be the most colorful mineral in the world. We've just bought a new stock of some very colorful pieces, including electric greens and blues and some fascinating multicolor pieces. Most of the new pieces are in the 10 to 45 carat size, with a few larger stones, all with excellent clarity. We've recently added some very colorful cabochons as well. |
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Color-Change Diaspore from Turkey: Diaspore, sometimes marketed under the name Zultanite, is a color change gem from Turkey recently introduced to the international market. Under natural or fluorescent light, Diapsore has a kiwi green color, with flashes of yellow. Diaspore displays a champagne color under incandescent lighting, and when exposed to subdued lighting, such as candlelight, has a pinkish hue. We've recently bought a substantial number of new pieces, with a good choice of cuts and sizes. |
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Snowflake Obsidian from Mexico: Obsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass. It is formed when felsic lava extruded from a volcano cools without crystal growth.In some stones, the inclusion of small, white, radially clustered crystals of cristobalite in the black glass produce a blotchy or snowflake pattern, and this is known in the gem trade as snowflake obsidian. |
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Unheated Sapphire from Tanzania, Madagascar and Thailand: Our unheated sapphires have been very popular and we continue to increase our stock (now over 700 pieces). For the discriminating gem buyer who will accept nothing less than 100% natural, you'll find pink, blue, green, yellow and violet pieces, all guaranteed to be unheated. You may be surprised how affordable these are in the smaller sizes. |
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Seraphinite from Russia: Seraphinite is a trade name for a particular form of clinochlore, a member of the chlorite group. The dark green color of seraphinite is enhanced by a silvery and feathery shimmer caused by mica inclusions. Seraphinite was named for the seraphim, the highest order of angels, because of the feather-like appearance of the chatoyant fibers in the stone. This fascinating gemstone is a new addition our inventory. |
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Top Grade Amethyst from Brazil: We've just acquired some top grade natural amethyst from Brazil in very large sizes, ranging from about 20 to 75 carats. These are all VVS or IF clarity in the richest purple we've seen in amethyst in a long time. If you've been looking for a very special piece of amethyst, you'll want to check these out. |
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Demantoid Garnet from Namibia: Demantoid is the rarest and most valuable of the garnets, and is one of the most difficult to find of all colored gems. It is one of the few colored gemstones with a luster and brilliance similar to diamond. We have built up a stock of more than 100 pieces of Namibian demantoid, including some very fine matched pairs. |
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Amber from Poland: Amber is the fossilized hardened resin of the pine tree, Pinus succinifera, formed mainly in the Eocene epoch of the Tertiary period, about 50 million years ago. Amber has been used since prehistoric times for jewelry, amulets and religious objects. The most prized pieces contain inclusions of insects or plants or pyrites. Most amber is found in the Baltic region. We buy amber just a few times a year from our source in Poland and we've just added a new stock. |
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Turquoise from Afghanistan: Turquoise has been known and valued for thousands of years. We've bought some new pieces from Afghanistan, in an interesting variety of blue and blue-green hues. We've also found some of the popular apple-green turquoise that we first carried last year, and some superb matched pairs in blue. |
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Huge Star Rose Quartz from South Africa: We carry many large gemstones, but none as large as these Star Rose Quartz. We've collected 9 pieces over 100 carats, with the largest weighing in at an amazing 974 carats. The star effect in rose quartz is unusual in any size, but quite rare in these very large stones. |
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Axinite from Tanzania: Axinite is a group of brown to violet-brown or reddish brown minerals that sometimes occur in gem quality. Axinite is distinctive for its strong vitreous luster when polished, and its interesting pyro- and piezo-electric properties. Axinite is also popular with mineral collectors due to its unusual crystal structure. We have found a small stock of golden brown Axinite from Tanzania. |
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Spinel from Burma: We buy fine spinel whenever we can find it, and we've recently added some very fine pieces of Burmese spinel. You'll find red, violet, orange, blue and gray in a variety of shapes and sizes, including a good selection of pairs and lots. |
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Blue Sapphire from Madagascar, Ceylon and Tanzania: One of the most classic of all colored gemstones, the blue sapphire is always fashionable. This brilliant and hard-wearing gemstone is perfect for any kind of jewelry. We've added many new stones to our stock of more than 400 blue sapphires, including a number of excellent cornflower blue pieces. |
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Jadeite from Burma: Jade has been known and treasured for more than 7,000 years. But only in 1863 was it discovered that jade is actually not a single mineral. What was traditionally called jade is in fact two separate and distinct minerals: jadeite and nephrite. Jadeite is the rarer and more valuable jade, with the most famous deposits coming from Burma. We have verified samples of our Jadeite at the AIGS gemological lab in Bangkok. You'll find a good range of colors in these, including white, green and lavender. |
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Spessartite Garnet from Mozambique: We have added a large number of new pieces to our extensive inventory of this very popular gem. We now have over 500 pieces in stock, in mandarin and red-orange, in both cabochon and faceted. The range of sizes and quality grades is extensive. Our most recent additions are in the best mandarin orange color, mainly in smaller sizes. |
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Color-Change Garnet from Tanzania and Madagascar: We've recently found some rare Color-Change Garnet from Tanzania with a dramatic color change from greenish-brown to red pink. We have a small number of pieces, mostly eye-clean, in the 1 to 2 carat size. We've added these to our substantial stock of Color-Change Garnet from Madagascar. |
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Sphene from Sri Lanka: We have added some excellent new pieces to our stock of this rare gemstone famous for its remarkable dispersion or fire. These are bright golden and green pieces in interesting shapes and cuts, including a number of rounds in smaller sizes. Sphene tends to have inclusions, but we've found a number of eye-clean pieces. |
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Emerald from Colombia: We have just received a new stock of Colombian emeralds with rich color and good transparency. These are mainly ovals and pears in smaller sizes, ideal for earrings and ring settings. |
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New Content at GemSelect
We add hundreds of new gems to our inventory every day. But we also add new content to our site each week as well, in the form of articles and reference material.
Recently we've added new articles on topics ranging from padparadscha sapphire to feldspar and zoisite. If you're interested in learning more about the history of the gemstone business, we are adding short biographies of some of the most interesting figures. See our new pieces on Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Friedrich Mohs and William Earl Hidden. Click the link to see all our gemstone articles.
Rare and Unusual Gems
Each month we feature a rare and unusual gem from our recent acquisitions. This month's featured gem is a very large flawless sapphire from Sri Lanka:
Sapphires tend to be cleaner than rubies, but large flawless sapphires over 3 carats are still quite rare. This outstanding violet blue sapphire from Sri Lanka, at 4.76 carats, is a good example of the excellent large sapphires that can still be found in the market at a affordable prices. But we see very few of them.
The color of this sapphire is reminiscient of fine tanzanite, but with all the virtues of sapphire (superb hardness and no cleavage). Though the lighter shades of blue sapphire have not been as highly valued as the darker tones, the lighter colors actually exhibit great fire and brilliance.
Customer Questions
Every month we answer questions of general interest from our customers. Please feel free to send your questions to help@gemselect.com. |
| Q: |
I noticed you've been adding some new kinds of gems, like bloodstone and scapolite. I was wondering, how many different kinds of gems are there in the world? TW, USA |
| A: |
It's not an easy question to answer in a definitive way, but the latest edition of Walter Schumann's Gemstones of the World lists about 135 different varieties of natural gemstones. We currently stock about 80 varieties, but our eventual goal is to stock every known kind of gemstone, as soon as we can find them.
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I'm not a gemstone expert and I'm not familiar with all the different varieties of gems. But I'm looking for some particular colors (blue-green and soft pink). Do you have a way to search your stock by color instead of gem names? Thanks for any advice. JM, Australia |
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A good place to start is with our Gems by Color page. This will show you all the different gem types that can be found in the basic colors (red, pink, blue, green, etc.). You can also type a color name, such as "blue green" in the search box that you'll find on every page, and that will take you to a page with all of our blue green gems, sorted by variety. |
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| A final note -- If you send us email, please be assured that we answer all our email very promptly, 6 days a week. But we sometimes have problems with spam filters on the receiving end, so please adjust the settings on your mail client so you can receive mail from help@gemselect.com.
Happy gem hunting,
Your friends at GemSelect
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