Shows and Events

Viewers will have a very brief window within which to view items of interest in the following two exhibitions.

Flea-Market Fabergé

In 2011, a lost Fabergé egg turned up at a Midwestern flea market, where an anonymous scrap metal dealer came across the objet d'art, snapping it up for about $14,000. He figured he could flip it for $500 more, based on the piece's gold content alone. Prospective buyers balked at the dealer's asking price, however.

Sold, for $2,450. Image appearing in the Parke-Bernet catalog for a sale held March 6–7, 1964. The description read: "259. Gold Watch in Egg-Form Case on Wrought Three-Tone Gold Stand Set with Jewels/ Fourteen-karat gold watch in reeded egg-shaped case with seventy-five-point-old-mine diamond clasp by Vacheron & Constantin; on eighteen-karat three-tone gold stand exquisitely wrought with an annulus, bordered with wave scrollings and pairs of corbel-like legs ciselé [chiseled] with a capping of roses, pendants of tiny leaves depending to animalistic feet with ring stretcher; the annulus bears three medallions of cabochon sapphires surmounted by tiny bowknotted ribbons set with minute diamonds, which support very finely ciselé three-tone gold swags of roses and leaves which continue downward and over the pairs of legs. (Clark) Height 3¼ inches"

The next year, the dealer Googled the terms "egg" and "Vacheron Constantin," the name engraved on the timepiece enclosed in the ribbed egg's interior. The search revealed that in 2011 experts determined that a Fabergé egg, one of fifty created for the Russian royals, had been sold in the U.S. as recently 1964. The revelation was reported by The Daily Telegraph on August 13, 2011, under the title "Is this £20 million nest-egg on your mantlepiece?" The article included a black-and-white image of the lost egg. Place yourself in the shoes of the dealer when his eyes alighted on the photograph of the item in his possession.

Sold, for ? The Fabergé egg has been sold to an anonymous buyer. A CBS News story stated that the sale price was undisclosed, but the intrepid Daily Mail claimed the price was $33 million. When the object was completed in 1887, it cost 2160 rubles; at the time the ruble was worth about 4 French francs (Wikipedia), or a little less than US$1 (Fabio Maggiore). During the Russian revolution the egg was seized by the Bolsheviks, being sold in 1922 as part of the "Treasure into Tractors" policy. (Copyright © Wartski, 2014. Photography Prudence Cuming Associates.)

The dealer contacted Kevin McCarthy, director of Wartski, the 150-year-old family firm in London that specializes in artworks by Carl Fabergé. McCarthy, who had been quoted in the Telegraph article, traveled to the U.S. to inspect the piece. "When he arrived in a small town in the Mid-West," as recounted in a Wartski press release,

he was shown into the kitchen of the owner's home and presented with the egg, which was slightly smaller than the large cupcake positioned next to it. After an examination he confirmed that it was indeed the lost Imperial treasure. It had travelled from the hands of an Empress in the grandeur of Imperial St. Petersburg to a scrap metal dealer in modern day America.

The last time this object was displayed publicly was at a March 1902 exhibition of the royal family's Fabergé collection in St. Petersburg. It will be displayed again only through April 17 at Wartski in London's Mayfair district. See the firm's website for details. [back to top]

Ravishing Rainbow

Following the US & International Diamond Week, held in Israel last week, a large collection of fancy colored diamonds will be displayed publicly, but briefly, at the Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum through April 26. The three hundred diamonds have been accumulated over forty years by Belgian diamantaire Eddy Elzas.

As Elzas remarked in a press release, "The historical value of this collection cannot be estimated. I started the collection at a time when fancy colored diamonds were regarded as inferior diamonds. These days, of course, are long gone!" As he told Luxe Immo magazine in an undated interview, the collection began about forty years ago when he received a parcel of "three generations" of South African diamonds that weren't marketable.

The Rainbow Collection will be displayed through April 26 at the Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum in the Ramat Gan diamond exchange complex. The collection includes three rare red beauties. (Photos courtesy Israel Diamond Exchange)

Now dubbed the "Rainbow Collection," these are the stones that Saudi Arabia's King Khalid, a year before he died, offered to buy as a wedding gift for Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1981. The impetus behind the sale was not the King's, but rather that of De Beers, which was eager to get diamonds back in the eyes of consumers following a slump, according to the Queen of Color Diamonds blog (via Antwerp Facets News Service). Flattered, Elzas declined. Twenty years later it was rumored that a deal was all but done that would have done the same for Charles and Diana's son William upon his marriage to Kate Middleton. Nope. The collection remains in the hands of Elzas.

Colored diamond lovers also will be interested in a story about Elzas's association with a remarkable pear-shaped stone known as The Koi Diamond, as reported last May by Luxurious Magazine. [back to top]

Pala at Las Vegas – May 29 – June 2, 2014

It’s time to plan for the JCK Las Vegas show. Pala International will be there in force, with one of America’s largest selections of fine colored gems.

Note: The JCK Show this year will run Friday through Monday.

When: May 29 – June 2, 2014
Where: South Pacific and Islander Ballrooms in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV
Hours: AGTA Gemstone Section
   Thursday, May 29 thru Sunday, June 1:
      9:30 AM – 6:00 PM
   Monday, June 2: 9:30 AM – 4:00 PM
Booth: AGTA Pavilion, booth AGTA514

We look forward to seeing our many friends there. Visit the Pala International Show Schedule for future events. [back to top]

Pala International News

Pala's Featured Stones: Taafeite

This month we feature a selection of taaffeites from Sri Lanka and Burma.

It's sometimes difficult to find a single taafeite, so this group of graduating sizes is quite a rare sight. Taaffeites are found in conjunction with spinels and are often mistaken and mixed in with spinel parcels. Taaffeites and spinels come from similar areas, have similar properties and come in similar colors. Identifying a taaffeite in a spinel parcel is a real find, since they are very rare and sought-after by the true connoisseur of collectable gems. Taaffeite crystals, like spinel, don't grow very large, so this 8.5-carat pentagon pictured below is rare in every sense of the word.

For more on taaffeite, see Gemdat.

Fab four. From left, 8.50-carat purple pentagon from Sri Lanka (Inv. #16133), 1.66-carat lavender trillion from Burma's Mogok Stone Tract (#7805), 2.35-carat brown oval from Sri Lanka (#15929), and 4.28-carat mauve oval from Sri Lanka (#2116). (Photo: Mia Dixon)

Interested? Select inventory numbers above, call (phone numbers below) or email us to inquire. [back to top]

Mia Dixon's Cover Stars

Two recent publications, pictured below, feature the photographic work of Mia Dixon, Pala International's resident photographer. We thought we'd show them off.

The March/April edition of the GemGuide features an image by Mia Dixon of four faceted bicolored tourmalines from Brazil with a combined weight of 4.62 carats.

Also by Mia Dixon is an image gracing the cover of the proceedings of the just-completed Twelfth Annual Sinkankas Symposium on the subject of Peridot and Uncommon Green Gem Minerals. The full color, soft cover, perfect bound volume is 147 pages copiously illustrated with 172 color photographs, illustrations and maps. Eleven articles cover topics including mineralogy and crystallography, gem archaeology of peridot, historically significant peridots, and two of the most important peridot sources of the past two decades—Myanmar and Pakistan—as well as an article on pallasites, a selected bibilography of the literature on peridot, and a pictorial gallery of peridots and other uncommon green gem minerals from the collection of Bill Larson.

At left is Mia Dixon's cover image of three peridots from Burma's Mogok Stone Tract, which produces much of the best-quality peridot in the world: a gold pendant set with a 8.89-carat peridot and 0.46-ctw diamond, by Ilka Bahn and available from The Collector Fine Jewelry; an oval 13.16-carat peridot; and an exceptional single crystal from Pyaung-gaung weighing 167.25 carats and measuring 4.0 x 2.5 cm. Crystals from Pala International. At right is a peridot, diamond, and platinum jewelry suite designed and created by Van Cleef & Arpels. The 54 custom-cut peridots were provided by Fine Gems International, Helena, Montana, using peridots from the deposit in the Himalayan Mountains of Pakistan. The suite was the subject of Robert Kane's presentation at the symposium. The faceted gems range in weight from 3.57 to 18.30 carats for a total of 350.40 carats. The diamonds were supplied by Van Cleef & Arpels. Photo © GIA Harold & Erica Van Pelt. (See preview.) To order the book, contact Roger Merk.

Above, the front and back cover images from the 2013 symposium proceedings, published in a new edition. At left, the Hixon Ruby, a 196.10-carat Mogok crystal donated in 1978 by Frederick C. Hixon to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. At right, a massive Mogok ruby crystal on matrix, formerly in the collection of Pala International's Bill Larson. Both were photographed by Harold and Erica Van Pelt. (See preview.) To order the book, contact Roger Merk.

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Butterfly Gets Its Wings

Late last month we received a note from jeweler Skip Colflesh, owner of The Jeweler's Bench in Hershey, Pennsylvania. And no, it had nothing to do with our news item in February about Chocolate Diamonds^®. It was to let us know about how he had employed demantoid garnets from Pala International in the design of a butterfly brooch. It's probably best told in his own words. "We fabricate a lot of nature themed jewelry," he told us, "but this was one of our most intricate designs." No kidding…

A client from Hagerstown, Maryland came to the shop asking me to design a life-size butterfly pin to be as lifelike as possible. We chose a photo of a "Moorland Clouded Yellow" male from a book I had.

The client was adamant that he wanted demantoid garnets and that they had to be Russian. That led me to Pala. Jason Stephenson helped me acquire parcels in the sizes I needed. All of the darker gems are black diamonds.

Pre-flight. Above, the wax figure that was created via CAD-CAM. The relative thinness of the wings is revealed by trancluscent wax. Below, which poor soul was volunteered to drill the 364 holes required by the design? (Photos: The Jeweler's Bench)

The branches were cast from a birch in my yard and the leaves were hand formed. The body was designed and sent to friend to do a CAD-CAM wax figure. He was nice enough to make me an extra wax in case I'm crazy enough to try another!

Life-size, lifelike. The butterfly brooch features a total of 364 gems, 2.78 carats of black diamonds and 5.23 carats of demantoids. The overall size is 3.5 x 2.25 inches. Just as the artist has rendered it here, the real-life Moorland Clouded Yellow butterfly can have contrasting deep black borders on its otherwise light green wings. Click to enlarge. (Photos: The Jeweler's Bench)

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Gems and Gemology News

Dr. Eduard Gübelin Research Scholarship

A not-for-profit component of the Gübelin Group known as the Dr. Eduard Gübelin Association for Research & Identification of Precious Stones last month announced an annual grant "to be allocated to an innovative research project in the field of gemmology," according to a press release. The scholarship comes after the centenary of Dr. Eduard J. Gübelin's birth last year and marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Gübelin Gem Lab. From the press release:

The scholarship is directed at MSc/PhD students or post-doctoral researchers in the fields of earth sciences (mineralogy, geology, geochemistry), crystallography, chemistry, physics, material sciences, archaeology, biology, and related fields. The successful project proposal has to be truly innovative, with demonstrable novel thinking; it must venture into new areas, test new concepts and methods, and hence contribute to the advancement of gemmological knowledge.

The scholarship will be awarded in the amount of CHF 30,000 ($33,000) and entail use of the Lab's own resources. Several leading academics comprise the scholarship's Scientific Committee, which will make the selection. The deadline for application is June 30, 2014, with the successful applicant to be announced in September. Details available here. [back to top]

Industry News

Sotheby's: "Tremendous Trio" Tripped

In March, Sotheby's announced an April 7 Hong Kong sale of "Magnificent Jewels and Jadeite," shining the spotlight on a "Tremendous Trio": "three highly important necklaces representing the ultimate in diamonds, gemstones and jadeite in phenomenal proportions." Expectations were high, but only one of the three proved to be truly tremendous.

The first of the triad was a Spectacular Diamond Necklace by Nirav Modi totaling 85.33 carats. It featured 17 graduated brilliant-cut diamonds weighing 10.51 to 1.27 carats. It was touted as the first necklace to appear at auction in Asia consisting of only Type IIa, Triple X main stones, with the largest 10+ carats. A nice little niche. But the buyers weren't, mm, buying it, with its estimated cost of between $7.3 and $8.3 million.

The magnum in the middle was The Red Emperor, a necklace decked out with 60 pigeon's blood rubies from Mogok—104.51 carats in all—created by James W. Currens for Fie Dee. This piece, which also featured 59.06 carats of diamonds, did sell—smack dab in the middle of its pre-sale estimate of between $8.7 and $11 million.

If the performance of the first two jewels was underwhelming, the third in the trio lived up to its hype. The Hutton-Mdivani Jadeite Bead Necklace revealed its pedigree in its name, having been in the jewelry boxes (or vaults) of both Woolworth heir Barbara Hutton and Hutton's sister-in-law Nina Mdivani, whose second husband was a son of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The necklace, by Cartier (to which it would return), was "composed of twenty-seven graduated jadeite beads of highly translucent bright emerald green colour, completed by a clasp set with calibré-cut rubies and baguette diamonds, mounted in platinum and 18 karat yellow gold," according to the lot description.

The necklace, pictured above in an unflattering press photo, was expected to sell for more than $12.9 million, but sold for more than twice that—$27.4 million—setting two records: auction record for any jadeite jewelry and also for a Cartier jewel. Eight bidders in person and on the telephone drove the price up for nearly 20 minutes. The excitement was such that, lost in the commotion, another record might have been overlooked: the world auction record for a ruby. This was achieved by the sale of a Cartier 29.62-carat cushion-shaped oval Mogok ruby and diamond ring, pictured below in a more complimentary press image. That record was almost a foregone conclusion. Its pre-sale estimate was $6.4 to $7.7 million; it went for a little less than $7.4 million.

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InColor Launches Handheld Apps

Colored gemstone enthusiasts can now browse the pages of InColor, the magazine of the International Colored Gemstone Association (ICA), via apps for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) and Android.

InColor is a quarterly that appeals to gemstone lovers of all levels, from those with a casual interest to the industry professional. Experts are tapped for in-depth reporting on issues from gemology to market trends, from fashion to education.

We downloaded the free iPhone app, and it was placed within iOS's built-in Newsstand app. From the InColor app readers can subscribe to the magazine or buy individual issues.

We purchased the Fall/Winter 2013 edition. The table of contents page isn't hyperlinked, so navigation within the pages is done via thumbnails—Thumbelina-sized—that are displayed by tapping anywhere on the screen. Tap the tool icon to get a raft of larger thumbnails that can be viewed in landscape.

Otherwise, the app's display orientation always is portrait, so, on an iPhone, you can only zoom in so far before cutting off text. Fortunately InColor's two-column format allows zoomed text to be readable (barely, for this set of aging eyes). Obviously, this would not be an issue on a tablet.

When you're done reading, tap the Shelf icon. When you return, you're where you left off in your previous session. The app is great to have, but when grabbing your iPhone, grab the reading glasses too. [back to top]

Ivory Ban Faces Challenges

In mid-February, the White House announced a ban on the commercial trade of elephant ivory. All commercial imports of African elephant ivory are prohibited, including antiques. Export of "bona fide" antiques (100+ years old) are allowed, as are some noncommercial items, and under some exceptional circumstances. Sales across state lines are limited to bona fide antiques. Intra-state sales are allowed only if the seller can prove an item was imported lawfully prior to 1990 for African elephant ivory and prior to 1975 for Asian elephant ivory, with some exceptions. Read the announcement at The Roskin Gem News Report.

Orphanage. In this video of young, abandoned elephants, BBC correspondent Mark Lowen provides a stark statistic, amongst others: elephants in Kenya numbered 167,000 in 1979; they now number 30,000.

In his introduction to the White House announcement, Gary Roskin asks whether the ban will do any good. That's a fair question in the face of the enormity of the challenge. BBC reported on February 13 that WWF estimates the entire black market in animals to be $19 billion a year. (The White House ban also covers wildlife trafficking.) BBC wrote that tens of thousands of elephants, rhinos and tigers are being killed each year, according to unnamed conservationists. All this was in the context of an announcement in London that the leaders of Botswana, Gabon, Chad and Tanzania have agreed to honor a ten-year moratorium on ivory sales. The announcement came out of an international conference on the trafficking. [back to top]

Burma Bits

Jade jottings…

This Burmese sapphire weighs 3.36 carats and is unheated. Inventory #20123. (Photo: Mia Dixon)

Last month, The Irrawaddy took readers on a trip to Burma's jade land in Kachin State's Hpakant. Photojournalist JPaing documented the journey. You'll see mining small- and large-scale, the jade market, the crazy road leading in, a heroin rig. The work now is artisanal due to the suspension of mechanized mining, and is dangerous, the writer was told, due to risk of injury, and risk of arrest, since the mining is illegal. The danger was echoed by a Bloomberg Businessweek story, March 25.

While the mining may be illegal, it contributes to a booming border trade, as reported by The Irrawaddy on April 9. The Myanmar Times (MT) March 31 puts the illegal trade figure in the billions of dollars. (MT also reported on the billions—$3 billion, or 5% of Burma's gross domestic product—that is tied up in the umbrella atop Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda.) Small dents are made in the dark trade from time to time, like an interception on March 20 of $143,000 worth of jade. Another story put the total intercepted at $6 million for FY 2013–14.

Burma's gem lands are dangerous also due to natural disasters (a jade mine landslide last month), infrastructure (a large fire in ruby land due to a short circuit this month), and war. And National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi may be suggesting some risk herself when on March 24 she called for citizens in ruby land to demonstrate for changes in Burma's constitution.

Bite-Sized Bits

• Eleven Media Group: Descendant of King Thibaw believes famous ruby is in UK (see also our look at the King and the ruby, via author Sudha Shah)
• EMG: Not-too-bright gem thief caught selling the stuff in a Yangon gold shop

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Books

Emerald: Twenty-one Centuries of Jewelled Opulence and Power

By Joanna Hardy, Jonathan Self, Franca Sozzani & Hettie Judah

Emerald, a new book under the Thames & Hudson imprint, is one of those coffee-table tomes that rivals the table in both mass and magnitude. The publisher celebrated its 110th birthday last year, and whereas hard-copy publishing has suffered in recent years, T&H is not showing the strain by scrimping. The thick, nearly cardstock quality pages of Emerald are a pleasure to peruse, mirroring the book's subtitle: Twenty-one Centuries of Jewelled Opulence and Power.

And Opulence abounds. The frontispiece is a vintage head shot of Audrey Hepburn by Irving Penn for Vogue, November 1964. It almost looks hand-tinted, with Hepburn sporting a Givenchy velvet basket-ball hat and limpid, pale green emerald drop earrings by Tiff, er, Cartier.

You want Power? Turn a page or two, and you're greeted by the 1951 wedding portrait of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and Queen Soraya, in an impossible Dior gown, accessorized by emerald necklace, earrings and (of course) tiara by Boucheron.

The authors, Joanna Hardy, Jonathan Self, Franca Sozzani and Hettie Judah take the reader through 250 pages and 400 images (all in color, even the b&w) and a millennium or two of the most sumptuous colored gemstone designs, accompanied by contemporary portraits and sketches. Sozzani, editor of Vogue Italia, starts it off with a preface discussing the personal relationship between wearer and worn. Art and fashion writer Hettie Judah provides the introduction, remarking how times have changed from when an icon would dress to please herself, to nowadays, "dressed to please armchair critics who check endless Instagram feeds from the red carpet, waiting eagerly for a faux pas."

A Renaissance Colombian emerald-set gold jewel recovered from the shipwreck of the Spanish galleon, Nuestra Señora de Atocha, Florida Keys, 1622, sold Sotheby's New York, 1 February 2013, Sale N08964, Lot 11. (Photo: Sotheby's Picture Library)

Joanna Hardy then spends 160 pages providing a historical overview of emerald, from Ancient Civilizations and The Cheapside Hoard to the Power Houses of couture and The New Artisans. She calls upon her experience as a goldsmith and Sotheby's expert and auctioneer, as well as her current enterprise as a teacher.

Writer Jonathan Self follows with 90 pages that offer a travelogue of the few localities that produce gem-quality emerald, taking us time-traveling as well: Cleopatra's mines; myths, legends and astrology (the birthstone meme began with 1st century historian Josephus, who may, or may not have written about Jesus); emerald in literature and such (beginning with Mesopotamian bills of sale); emerald in empire building (Spain, Mughal, Portugal). Self then makes extended visits (in person) to Colombia, Zambia, and Jaipur. He ends with a chapter that is sure to vex and/or charm the scientifically minded, titled "Healed By an Emerald: A Power that Medical Science Can Not Explain," in which Self the skeptic encounters an Indian gem-healer (and we're not talking cedar oil).

The book ends with a two-page bibliography (notable for some omissions) and the tack-on of a few pages of inclusion photomicrographs. For all its heft, narrative and imagery, Emerald is affordable. It will engage the eye as well as the mind.

The Timken necklace. Designed by Cartier, Paris in 1925—the spring-time of art deco—belonged to Lilian S. Timken, whose husband, William, was one of the founders of the Timken roller-bearing company in Canton, Ohio. They lived in a 24-room apartment on Fifth Avenue, New York and amassed a highly significant art collection as well as some dazzling pieces of jewelry by the top houses. This emerald, sapphire and diamond necklace is one of the most important examples of Cartier jewelry from the 1920s. It includes three rare Mughal emeralds carved with floral designs on the front and reverse weighing 71.91 carats, 30.27 carats and 29.21 carats, there are 18 sapphire beads, 34 buff-top cabochon sapphires, 18 emerald beads and 652 diamonds. (Photo: Siegelson, New York)

Lamp clip, 1929, by Van Cleef & Arpels. Platinum, ruby, emeralds, moonstone, diamonds, one carved emerald 8.19 carats, one cabochon-cut emerald 1.25 carats. (Photo: © Van Cleef & Arpels)

A Seaman Schepps bracelet found in the collection of Andy Warhol, c. 1940: emerald, rock crystal, moonstone and diamond. Click to enlarge. (Seaman Schepps)

Snake necklace named "Eternity" in diamond and emerald set with two emeralds weighing more than 200 carats each, Cartier 1997. (Photo: © Cartier/Cartier Archives)

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Pala Presents

With Pala Presents, we offer selections from the collection of Pala International’s Bill Larson, who will share with us some of the wealth of information in the realm of gems and gemology. And, as with this edition, gemstone-related collectibles.

Mighty Diamond: Birthstone Collecting Cards

This month we feature a collecting card from Liebig Company, manufacturer of a meat extract that preceded the popular OXO bullion cubes. The product was canned in Villa Independencia, Uruguay, using beef that might have otherwise been discarded in the production of leather (Wikipedia).

A diamond collecting card from the makers of Liebig Company's Meat Extract. "The extract is spread all over the world," states the advertising copy—as, it seems, were lawn gnomes. Two other collecting cards for April are available here.

For more information on birthstones, see Palagems.com. [back to top]

Recycle Bin

Below is a recent item from our sibling publication, Pala Mineralis, that will be of interest to colored gemstone enthusiasts.

Excellent Birds: Carvings of the Klein Family of Idar-Oberstein

Pala International has commissioned a new gem carving collection: hummingbirds. Bill Larson explains…

The project came about because of my boys Will and Carl. They asked about the wonderful miniature bird carvings collection we have from Gerhard Becker, from the famous gemstone town of Idar-Oberstein in southwestern Germany. (For an example of Becker's work, see the tail end of this story.) I was able to tell them that the carvings were designed and created by Gerhardt Becker but were carved by the Klein family. We happen to know the Kleins; these days the next generation of Kleins—Stephan and Gabi—are running the show.

Above, the title image of a slide show illustrating the carving process from crystal to lifelike bitty bird. See the slide show here.

We had many parrots and other birds in our collection, but my sons noted that we only had one hummingbird, and these of course are the favorite of most everyone in California. So it was simply a matter of inviting Stephan over for the 2012 Denver show, via California, where he selected many different colors and pieces of tourmaline rough I still had from the Himalaya Mine as well as several aquamarines from Nigeria. We shipped the material to Idar-Oberstein and reviewed several different design ideas—all by the Kleins and slightly modified by our resident bird expert Gamini Ratnavira, the wonderful wildlife artist from Sri Lanka. Our project had started to take life: the creation of several hummingbirds sculptures on rock crystal orchids.

I'm happy to report that after about a year and a half we now have four new and wonderful sculptures that complement, extraordinarily well, the miniature tourmaline bird sculpture collection from 30-plus years before.

All this talk about tiny birds reminds us of the hummingbird inclusion enshrined in Harold Van Pelt's freeform crystal carving, which Pala's Mia Dixon highlighted three years ago this month.

Something to Crow About

In other avian news, a world record for Chinese porcelain was set April 8 when The Meiyintang Chenghua "Chicken Cup" was sold for $36.05 million. It will grace the exhibition space of Liu Yiqian's Long Museum in Shanghai, bringing a Chinese treasure back to China. See the lot description for more information.

BBC quoted Sotheby's Nicholas Chow as calling this cup the "holy grail" of Chinese art. (Photo: Sotheby's)

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— End April Newsletter • Published 4/15/14 —

Shows and Events

Twelfth Annual Sinkankas Symposium – Peridot and Uncommon Green-colored Gem Minerals

April 5, 2014, GIA World Headquarters and
The Robert Mouawad Campus, Carlsbad

The annual Sinkankas Symposium has been described by John Koivula as the "best gem mineral symposium in North America" and has a reputation for achieving sold-out enrollment.

This year's theme focuses on green-colored gems that have lower public recognition than their more illustrious counterparts such as emerald, jade, etc., with peridot perhaps the most well-known. For instance, Pala International’s Bill Larson will offer "Green with Envy," a photographic odyssey of fine crystals and cut gems from worldwide localities featuring peridot and a panoply of uncommon green gems of beguiling beauty ranging from A (actinolite) to Z (zircon). Lisbet Thoresen, whose study of ancient garnet we reviewed in January, will discuss the disappearing act of the "poor man's emerald" in her presentation, "Chromian Chalcedony: A Gem from History's Lost and Found."

Note that the speaker lineup has changed. Visit the Sinkankas Symposium website for speaker bios and abstracts of presentation topics.

• Dr. James A. Harrell, keynote speaker – Discovery of the Red Sea Source of Topazos (Ancient Gem Peridot) on Zabargad Island, Egypt
• Dr. Skip Simmons – Mineralogy and Crystallography of Peridot
• Dr. James Shigley – Olivine Geology
• Dr. Raquel Alonso-Perez – How Green Was My Sapat Valley: Peridot of Pakistan
• Dr. George Harlow – Peridot from Pyaung-gaung, Mogok Tract, Myanmar: Similarities to Sapat and Zabargad Deposits
• Nathan Renfro – Cutting Peridot and the Exploration of Its Inclusions
• Lisbet Thoresen – Chromian Chalcedony: A Gem from History's Lost and Found
• Robert Weldon – Magnificent Jewels of the Cheapside Hoard
• Dr. James Shigley – Green gem materials
• William Larson – Green with Envy: Gem Minerals from the Collection of William F. Larson
• Dr. George Rossman – Causes of Color in Green Gem Minerals

Envious? Andalusite is beautifully pleochroic. This 3.37-carat oval is from Brazil. Inv. #21617. (Photo: Mia Dixon)

The Sinkankas Symposium is organized by Roger Merk, and co-sponsored by the Gemological Society of San Diego and the GIA (Gemological Institute of America). It will be held Saturday, April 5, 2014, at the GIA World Headquarters and The Robert Mouawad Campus, 5345 Armada Drive, Carlsbad, CA 92008.

Registration

The registration form is now posted on the Symposium website. Or register online.

Early-bird registration ends on March 18, 11:59 pm Pacific Time, when it goes from $95.00 to $105.00 per person Registration includes refreshments, boxed lunch and one copy of the printed book. Absolute deadline is April 1. No onsite registration.

Use either the form/s-mail or the online registration to pre-pay for extra copies of the Peridot book and/or the revised edition of the Ruby book and get them for $30.00 each (delivered at the Symposium); at the Symposium, they will be $38.00. [back to top]

Views on Tucson

As she always does, our friend Eloïse Gaillou, curator of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, shares her favorite sights from the gem and mineral shows, and last month in Tucson was no exception. Her posts are divided in two—Gem Shows and Mineral Shows—but there is plenty of crossover, with the first image shown below appearing on the latter page. Walk in hungry.

A dowager's dream. From a GIA exhibit of Gems & Gemology covers along with their cover stars. Above are rubellite tourmaline jewels from the Queen Mine, San Diego County; 13.8-carat ring, 18.5-carat necklace. Designed by none other than Jeanne Larson, courtesy The Collector Fine Jewelry. (Photo: Eloïse Gaillou)

Recto/verso. Okay, blue topaz is supposed to be a kind of a joke in the industry; a dime a dozen. But all kidding is shoved aside in the hands of a lapidary with vision. From the Somewhere In The Rainbow collection. Gaillou: "They have some of the most amazing rare gemstones I've even seen." (Photo: Eloïse Gaillou)

We were just informed by Eloïse that the Gem and Mineral Council of the Natural History Museum is offering a tour of Burma in the fall. Details here. (The European tour we mentioned last month has been cancelled.)

Tucson Times

The New York Times yesterday ran a follow-up to Tucson. "On the Origins of Gems" looks at some of the trends both at Tucson and in the larger (is there a larger?) market, and issues such as rarity and locality. Amongst those quoted: Robert Weldon (GIA) on Ethiopian white opal, Richard Hughes (Lotus Gemology) on the rainbow hues of Madagascar sapphire and pigeon's blood ruby, designer Erica Courtney on a missed opportunity (Paraiba tourmaline from Brazil, too expensive at $300/ct—twenty years ago). [back to top]

Pala International News

Pala's Featured Stones: Spinels

Spinels continue to grow in popularity, keeping demand on the rise. As this awareness grows, the bounty of fancy colors opens up to a whole new group of collectors. Spinel requests are branching out from the classic red hues into green, blue-greens, blues, lavenders, pinks and beyond. These fancy colors are completely natural, coming out of the ground in this wonderful array. Although singularly refractive, spinels often display a pleasant mix of hues and exhibit a slightly higher dispersion than sapphire, giving them a more lively character in some cases. There are also color-change and color-shifting spinels, taking on different colors in different lighting. Supplying the demand seems to be the tricky part these days, so Pala International is continuously gobbling up all the spinels we can get our hands on.

Spring quartet. Left to right, a Burmese 3.39-carat spinel (Inventory #18978), a Sri Lankan round purple spinel weighing 2.94 carats (#20775), followed by a blue round Ceylon spinel weighing 1.36 carats (#21745) and lastly we have a blue-green color-change Sri Lankan spinel weighing 2.20 carats (#21746). (The last two were just added to our inventory today.) Click to enlarge. (Photo: Mia Dixon)

Check out our extensive collection of spinels here. Interested? Select inventory numbers above, call (phone numbers below) or email us to inquire. [back to top]

Imageology

Gemologist and author Richard W. Hughes presented in Tucson last month on the topic of "Ruby & Sapphire: A Collector's Guide" (coincidentally the title of his new book). Pala International's Bill Larson was so impressed by the presentation's closing montage, "Lands of Red & Blue," that we asked Hughes to share it with our readers. He complied, providing us with an added treat, "Source."

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Industry News

À la mode: Color on the Carpet

Industry writer Deborah Yonick provides her take, via AGTA, on the recently concluded Academy Awards. Pictured in her report are Jennifer Lawrence sporting a back-draped carved rock crystal and diamond, a green tourmaline and diamond pendant worn by Jennifer Lee, and Catherine Martin wearing a yellow diamond and amethyst arrows brooch-pendant. Martin won an Oscar for costume design for The Great Gatsby, on which she collaborated with Tiffany & Co. in jewelry design.

Other celebrities pictured: Amy Adams with rhodochrosite, lapis, turquoise and diamond earrings; Cate Blanchett in opal chandalier drop earrings; Olivia Wilde in jade and diamond earrings; Lupita Nyong'o accessorized with a 19th century yellow gold and diamond coiled snake bracelet, an 18k yellow gold frog ring, a 19th century yellow gold, pearl and diamond ring, a 19th century yellow gold and opal ring, and a 1960s 18k gold, turquoise, and diamond ring; and more…

To browse some of the jewels close-up, see the Jewels du Jour blog. [back to top]

Giving Back in Africa

Last April we noted the efforts of award-winning gemstone faceter Lisa Elser to give back a portion of her profits to the people of the countries that produce her gorgeous stones. In 2013 she and her husband Tom Schlegel donated medical equipment to Dr. Ikem Onwude, who conducts free weekend clinics in Abuja, Nigeria. They hope to finance a medical safari to the country's mining regions in 2014. (Learn more about their give-back initiatives here.)

Elser and Schlegel also are involved with the drilling of drinking water wells and building of sanitary latrines, with the aim of one of each per year. The wells free people from the time-consuming drudgery of having to haul water from far-away sources. The couple work in Tanzania with MSABI, a program that describes itself as "a demand-driven, replicable and expandable model for the implementation of cost-efficient community based water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) projects."

Women install a MSABI pump in a Maasai village. The organization is active in the Tanzanian districts of Kilombero and Ulanga, which includes the Mahenge area, which has produced huge red spinel crystals. (Photo: Jake Belvin, jakebelvin.com)

Another project that Elser and her husband work with is the Devon Foundation: "Bringing Gemology & Lapidary Education to Gem Mining Communities." The organization is directed by Nancy Schuring, Debbie Swinney, Joe Portale and Jim Fiebig. As readers of our pages are aware, one of the challenges of gem-producing countries in the global south is creating value-added products in the countries themselves rather than shipping all rough abroad. (The situation was briefly outlined in a National Geographic Onward report last fall.) The Devon Foundation began facilitating this by awarding scholarships in the lapidary arts to students in Madagascar for whom such schooling was beyond their reach.

Faceter Roger Dery provides a brief introduction to the work of the school and Devon Foundation's support. Contact the foundation here.

When the country's political situation changed in 2011, the foundation turned its attention to the already-existing Arusha Gemmological and Jewelry Vocational Training Center in the famous gem-producing locality of Tanzania. (See Robert Weldon's report on his visit on behalf of GIA during the 2012 the Arusha International Gem and Mineral Fair to learn how it could serve the local community with gemological education and resources.) Using Devon Foundation funds, the school is adding a new classroom. Foundation associates also donate textbooks and supplies on visits to the school.

For their part, Elser and Schlegel work with another educational endeavor, Southern and East African Mineral Centre, based in Dar-Es-Salaam, which provides training in gemology and gem cutting as well as several other mineral-related courses.

Trade Group Pursues Responsible Sourcing

The trade organization Precious Stones Multi-Stakeholder Working Group, formed last April in Paris, met last month during the AGTA GemFair. According to a February 21 press release, PSMSWG is "an open, non-exclusive coalition of companies, associations, NGOs and governments sharing an interest in responsible sourcing and supply-chain due diligence for precious stones." Many in the colored gem trade, however, question the accuracy of this representation. We are told there are issues of transparency and process that trouble some participants.

The group is investigating application of due diligence guidelines by entities such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The group's study on this issue is slated for a late spring release. Some in the trade feel that while the concept of the study is laudible, there are concerns: it is being rushed, it lacks input from some parties, and thus it may be flawed.

The group has regular conference calls; contact information is available in the press release. Tune in next month, when we will cover the working group and its efforts in more depth. [back to top]

Research Roundup

A Treated Stone Sold as "Black Sapphire"

In January, GIT Testing Laboratory issued a report on a parcel of gems being marketed as "black sapphire." According to "A Treated Stone Sold as 'Black Sapphire'," this type of material is found from western China to Australia.

Microscopic examination with strong fiber optic light revealed dark blue coloration along healed fissures. Under shortwave ultraviolet light, the stones glowed weakly a chalky blue mostly in the healed fracture areas. Refractive index was normal for corundum. Dicroscopic examination revealed very dark to dark blue colors.

Advanced analysis also was performed and it was concluded that the stones had been treated by common titanium diffusion, but with a bit of a twist. Titanium is able to penetrate only slightly; the fissures allowed it go deeper.

Update on Gemstone Mining in Luc Yen, Vietnam

Sixteen months ago, we pointed to a Gems & Gemology cover that featured a "luscious jumble" of a ruby specimen from Luc Yen, northern Vietnam, in the collection of Pala International's Bill Larson. We also included Will Larson's story about the acquisition of that specimen—through the eyes of a 12-year-old. Also on that cover were three faceted stones, also from northern Vietnam: a blue spinel, a red spinel and a ruby. Beautiful.

But Luc Yen produces more than spinel and ruby, as the current edition of Gems & Gemology certifies. "Update on Gemstone Mining in Luc Yen, Vietnam," by Pham Van Long, Vincent Pardieu, and Gaston Giuliani, looks at corundum and spinel, but also tourmaline, feldspar, and pargasite and humite (the latter two often being associated with spinel). The article begins with history and geology, moving on to the mining (include a chart of more than 30 mining sites) and trading. Nicely illustrated, as demonstrated by the image below.

Pinch me not. Faceted green feldspars from Luc Yen. (Photo: Vincent Pardieu, © GIA)

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Burma Bits

Jade jottings…

Peridot is on the bill for this year's Sinkankas Symposium. This is a 11.33-carat Burma beauty. Inv. #21399. (Photo: Mia Dixon)

Last month we led off pointing to a report in the official New Light of Myanmar daily, that a jade boulder weighing 15 tons had been found in Hpakant, in Kachin State. It had been found on February 9. By February 20 that boulder had increased in size to 50 tons, according to The Irrawaddy. The reason for the discrepancy is that, iceberg-like, most of it was still in the ground. On the 20th, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reported it was "a 37-ton slab" and that the Burmese army had moved in to secure the area. But by the 26th, DVB reported it was "nothing but a rock," according to Kachin State minister of mines, Aung Naing. This was contradicted by locals, but the minister said it would be placed on display to prove his case. Apparently during moving the boulder had cracked proving it was just an ordinary rock. Prior to its identification, Kachin News Group (via AP) quoted a man who said the Kachin Independence Organization had been offered 10% of the boulder's value.

The same day as its report on the boulder, The Irrawaddy published a scathing story on jade mining in Hpakant, titled "From Jade Land to a Wasteland." One jade dealer, U Cho, likened the dynamite-blasting method employed to the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. A mountain can be here and gone within the space of a month, he said. Somewhat ironically, in a section of the article titled "The wages of peace," it's pointed out that such extraction didn't begin in earnest until the rebel Kachin Independence Organization signed a ceasefire agreement with the military junta.

In other dour news from Kachin, the Myanmar Times describes as a "fiasco" the upgrading of the Hpakant-Moegaung road. (See "Burmese Jade: The Inscrutable Gem" for why this road might need some work.) When Vice President Sai Mauk Kham visited the state last August, locals asked him to facilitate the improvement. This began a bureaucratic nightmare involving mining entrepreneurs, which the article describes in detail, closing with the following:

Many people question why Myanmar remains poor despite its wealth of resources. If ever there was a good example to illustrate the answer, it is the tangled financial dealings behind the reconstruction of the Hpakant-Moegaung road.

Jewelers Ticked, Tickled

On February 22, President Thein Sein held a meeting with Burma's top business figures, including Tay Za, above, who called for investigating mining in Kachin and lowering taxes on gem entrepreneurs. It came to pass…

Meanwhile, Burma's jewelers have made their own demands on the government. Tired of selling only to Burma residents and foreigners who attend the periodic gem emporiums, the jewelers want to open the market, according to a March 10 Myanmar Times story. Their challenge is the same as that faced by Tanzanian crafters (see above): visiting dealers buy rough, which they carry back to the home country, leaving the local value-added producers out of the loop.

In welcome news to jewelery dealers, Burma's parliament revised the 2014–15 tax law, halving the commercial tax on finished jade and gemstones, from 30% to 15%, according to a story in yesterday's Myanmar Times. The tax on rough remains at 30%. Somewhat contraditorily, March 11 coverage of tax reform by The Irrawaddy stated, "Burma’s rich natural resources, such as jade, gems and timber, have mostly flowed out of the country unregulated and lightly taxed during past decades of military rule, generating little in the way of government revenues." But a related DVB story stated that country's Internal Revenue Department issued a list of over 10,000 Burma companies that have evaded tax since 2012.

Jade Sales

In statistics that appear to match those we noted last month, Eleven Media Group reported yesterday that exports of jade for the first nine months of Burma's 2013–14 fiscal year (Apr–Dec) reached $920 million. This tops the total for the entire 2012–13 fiscal year, of $297 million.

Bite-Sized Bits

• Mizzima News: Burma protests to China regarding illegal gem exports
• Kachin News Group: China sends humanitarian aid to Kachin refugees
• Eleven Media Group: Portrait of Shan State; "a rainbow of hilltribes, precious stones, and sacred traditions"
• Xinhua: Burma and Asian Development Bank deal helps AIDS services and pearl farmers
• The Irrawaddy: Dynamite fishing affects pearl farming in southern Burma's Mergui Archipelago
• The Gemstone Forecaster: "My Trip to the Land of the (Myanmar) Burma Ruby" by Clayton Chang (and other Burma news)

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Books

Exotic Gems, Volume 3 by Renée Newman

How to Identify, Evaluate, Select and Care for
Matrix Opal, Fire Agate, Blue Chalcedony, Rubellite,
Indicolite, Paraiba and Other Tourmalines

It's been three years since our review of Renée Newman's Exotic Gems, Volume 2—not that she's been out of sight. Last year, she published Gold, Platinum, Palladium, Silver & Other Jewelry Metals. And 2012 brought us her Rare Gemstones, which featured several stones from the Pala International inventory that are still available. But enough about past achievements…

Volume 3 of Exotic Gems begins, in Chapter 1, "Exotic Gems," by answering a question the savvy gem enthusiast might raise: What's so exotic about tourmaline? Answer: The Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi, who may be remembered as having installed China's last Emperor while on her deathbed. To gemstone lovers she's remembered for her passion for pink (also pearls and jade). Tourmaline, Newman informs us, was to the Dowager Empress truly exotic, because there was no local source for the material. It was her ardor for rosy tourmaline that drove a mining boom in San Diego in the years before her death in 1908.

As Newman points out, the exotic isn't only the distant and alien. "Strikingly, excitingly or mysteriously different or unusual" gems, like multicolored and Paraiba tourmaline also fit the bill. Newman goes on to describe briefly the characteristics of each of the gemstones to which she devotes single or multiple chapters. For instance tourmaline, in all its diversification, is discussed across seven chapters.

Above, the image of Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi adorns a bottle with a stopper of pink tourmaline, her favorite gemstone. (Photo: Mia Dixon, Pala International) Below left, watermelon tourmaline pin/pendant by Paula Crevoshay (Photo: Paula Crevoshay Studio) Below right, Paraiba tourmaline from Evan Caplan (Photo: Harold & Erica Van Pelt)

Chapter 2 is devoted to pricing vis-à-vis not just the Four C's (color, clarity, cut, carat weight) but also transparency (distinct from clarity); brilliance; treatments; content of copper, chromium and/or vanadium; origin; and phenomena. To illustrate cut, Newman includes the photograph by Wimon Manorotkul of a faceted quartz with a single needle of black tourmaline extending from culet to table like an axis, creating a wild kaleidoscopic effect.

An example of inventive faceting: a bicolor tourmaline cut by J. L. White Fine Gemstones. (Photo: Jeff White)

Chapter 3 is a general overview of tourmaline, including a brief history, beginning with a tourmaline intaglio, ca. 3rd century B.C.E., depicting Alexander the Great. (It is housed at the Ashmolean Museum, which has an online exhibition of intaglios in other materials. Exotic Gems also features examples of modern intaglios.) Tourmaline identification and chemistry are handled next, followed by the characteristics of the five tourmaline species: elbaite, dravite, uvite, schorl and liddicoatite. The reader then turns to a four-page pictorial of faceting by master cutter John Bradshaw, who also contributes an essay on cutting. The chapter ends with notes on tourmaline care.

Chapter 4 covers Paraiba and other copper-bearing tourmalines, species: elbaite, beginning with a history of the Brazilian locality that gave its name—grudgingly—to material that hails from Brazil to Nigeria to Mozambique. Newman succinctly reviews the name-game issues, including "a lack of consensus" regarding issues of appearance in material from disparate localities. (Also included at the chapter's end are alternate monikers for this material—a slew of them: Caribbean-blue, electric green, neon, Seafoam, sky-blue, swimming-pool blue, turquoise blue, and even Windex-blue, a term often applied to blue topaz.) Newman then looks at identification of this cuprian tourmaline, followed by price factors. We should note here that this chapter (like the others) is abundantly illustrated. A favorite from this chapter is a necklace incorporating both African and Brazilian copper-bearing tourmaline.

Chapter 5 looks at blue to green tourmaline. The blue variety, called indicolite, is explained, followed by green, or chrome, tourmaline. Just to keep you on your toes, another green tourmaline is thrown into the mix: verdelite, or tourmaline that is green, but not due to chromium, copper or vanadium. Blue-green and gray tourmaline are discussed next, with the chapter being rounded out by identification issues.

Pink tourmaline ring by Andrew Sarosi. (Photo courtesy Andrew Sarosi)

Pink and red tourmaline, aka rubellite, are examined in Chapter 6, and if you needed proof that the Empress Dowager was onto something, look no further than the handsome ring pictured above. Evaluation tips and sources are discussed after a general overview.

Chapter 6 (along with the others) contains examples of lovely mineral specimens like this tourmaline from the Himalaya Mine in Mesa Grande, California, with etched feldspar. (Photo: John McLean, Pala International)

Chapter 7 deals with yellow, orange and brown tourmaline. Illustrated are stones in hues of canary yellow, lemon yellow, yellow green, golden and pleochroic orange, and salmon. Yum.

Liddicoatite from Pala International. (Photo: Mia Dixon)

Multicolored tourmaline is the subject of Chapter 8. The geologic origins are discussed before looking at liddicoatite (a variety with pronounced color zoning), effect of zoning on price, pleochroic multicolor (!) effect, and a gallery of jewelry employing this material. Chapter 9 covers cat's-eye and color-change tourmaline.

Whew! Did you think we forgot the other Exotic Gems? Blue chalcedony is next, in Chapter 10, and we're reminded to compare and contrast the subtleties of this stone with Pantone's color of the year, Radiant Orchid. Let the picture below speak its thousand words. Yum yum. Newman gives this the full treatment: definition, identification, sources near and far, quality and care.

Blue chalcedony pendant by Leslie Weinberg. (Photo: Robert and Orasa Weldon)

Next up is fire agate in Chapter 11. This might be an acquired taste for some. As Newman writes, "If you're attracted to the color play of opal and the iridescence of ammolite," this material is for you. After an overview, Newman covers price factors, cutting and care. Two pages are devoted, again, to a master cutter's technique, courtesy Ryszard Krukowski.

Fire agate from Pala International. (Photo: Mia Dixon)

We love matrix opal and were delighted by the variety of examples included in the 12th and final chapter of Exotic Gems. Newman covers the five main types: boulder matrix opal, Yowah nut or Koroit nut, Andamooka matrix opal, Mexican (aka fire) opal matrix, and Honduras matrix opal. She then looks at identification traits (beware the synthetics), pricing and evaluation and, finally, care.

Boulder matrix opal from Pala International. (Photo: Jason Stephenson)

Exotic Gems includes a three-page bibliography for further reading. You'll want to keep this handy both as a reference but also as a reminder of the variety of Planet Earth's bounty. The book can be purchased at major bookstores and jewelry supply stores, or via the link on the author’s website. [back to top]

Pala Presents

With Pala Presents, we offer selections from the collection of Pala International’s Bill Larson, who will share with us some of the wealth of information in the realm of gems and gemology. And, as with this edition, gemstone-related collectibles.

Lucky Bloodstone: Birthstone Collecting Cards

Bloodstone, a birthstone for March, is the third in our series of collecting cards that we'll supply over the next twelve months. For more information on birthstones, see Palagems.com.

Two other collecting cards for March are available here.

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— End March Newsletter • Published 3/18/14 —

Islamabad Gem Exhibition: Feb. 21–23, 2014

The 4th Islamabad Gem Exhibition is scheduled for February 21–23, 2014, but you wouldn't know it from the Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development website, which makes no mention. Details are available in the poster below.

See also this 13-minute documentary about the gems and jewelry industry of Pakistan, filled with eye candy.

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Bill Larson to Address SDMG 80th Annual Banquet

It's been a year of milestones, with the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show celebrating 60 years, and the San Diego Mineral and Gem Society marking its 80th birthday. Pala International's Bill Larson will be the featured speaker for the latter bash, to be held on Saturday, March 8, 2014, 11:30 a.m., at the 94th Aero Squadron Restaurant, 8885 Balboa Ave., San Diego.

Bill will show highlights from various mines in San Diego County—exceptional specimens that include morganite, kunzite, garnet, and rare gem species. He noted, "I was the speaker at the 70th anniversary, so I guess my goal is to speak at the 100th!"

The "Candelabra" Tourmaline was mined in 1972 by Bill Larson at the Tourmaline Queen mine in San Diego County's Pala District. "What a sight," he recalled years later, "over a foot long." (It actually is about a foot and a half.) It now is on public display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. (Photo: Harold & Erica Van Pelt)

Ticket info and more details for the banquet available here. [back to top]

Twelfth Annual Sinkankas Symposium – Peridot and Uncommon Green-colored Gem Minerals

April 5, 2014, GIA World Headquarters and
The Robert Mouawad Campus, Carlsbad

The annual Sinkankas Symposium has been described by John Koivula as the "best gem mineral symposium in North America" and has a reputation for achieving sold-out enrollment.

This year's theme focuses on green-colored gems that have lower public recognition than their more illustrious counterparts such as emerald, jade, etc., with peridot perhaps the most well-known. For instance, Pala International’s Bill Larson will offer "Green with Envy," a photographic odyssey of fine crystals and cut gems from worldwide localities featuring peridot and a panoply of uncommon green gems of beguiling beauty ranging from A (actinolite) to Z (zircon). Lisbet Thoresen, whose study of ancient garnet we reviewed last month, will discuss the disappearing act of the "poor man's emerald" in her presentation, "Chromian Chalcedony: A Gem from History's Lost and Found."

Visit the Sinkankas Symposium website for speaker bios and abstracts of presentation topics.

• Dr. Raquel Alonso-Perez – Peridot from Sapat, Pakistan
• Dr. James A. Harrell – Archaeogemology of Peridot
• William Larson – Green with Envy
• Shane McClure
• Nathan Renfro – Cutting Peridot and the Exploration of Its Inclusions
• Dr. George Rossman will discuss the causes of color in green gem minerals
• Dr. James Shigley
• Dr. Skip Simmons – Mineralogy and Crystallography of Peridot
• Lisbet Thoresen – Chromian Chalcedony: A Gem from History's Lost and Found
• Robert Weldon

Envious? Zircon comes to us in a rainbow of hues, often colorless, golden, or ruddy. This natural green variety is more rare. Inv. #20069. (Photo: Mia Dixon)

The Sinkankas Symposium is organized by Roger Merk, and co-sponsored by the Gemological Society of San Diego and the GIA (Gemological Institute of America). It will be held Saturday, April 5, 2014, at the GIA World Headquarters and The Robert Mouawad Campus, 5345 Armada Drive, Carlsbad, CA 92008.

Registration

The registration form is posted on the Symposium website after past attendees are sent their invitations. Join the San Diego Mineral & Gem Society mailing list to be kept informed; after submitting your email address, be sure to select the Sinkankas Symposium checkbox.

Pala International's Bill Larson poses in Tucson with Eloïse Gaillou, curator of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Eloïse has her Alsace guidebook in preparation for the "European Gem & Mineral Experience: a trip organized by the curatorial staff of NHMLAC," June 27th – July 7th, 2014, with stops in Idar-Oberstein, Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, mines & vines & wines, and more. (Note: This tour has been cancelled.) Bill holds the revised edition of the proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Sinkankas Symposium – Ruby. This lovely, 130-page volume, co-published by Pala International, will be available for online purchase soon; check the Symposium website for news. The cover star of the proceedings is the Hixon ruby, which happens to be owned by Eloïse's institution. It's a pristine natural crystal, from the Mogok Stone Tract; at 196 carats, it is one of the finest Burmese rubies on display in a public museum. The ruby was photographed by Harold and Erica Van Pelt. (Photo: Will Larson)

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2nd China (Changsha) Mineral & Gem Show:
May 15–20, 2014

The theme of this year's show is "Mines."

Take a breather after Tucson, buy a new pair of sensible shoes, and take off for the 2nd China (Changsha) Mineral & Gem Show, May 15–20, 2014. With two floors and hundreds of exhibitors, you'll want to be light on your feet. Trade-only days are May 15 and 16; public days are May 17–20, at the Hunan International Conference & Exhibition Center.

Reports on last year's show by Pala International's Will Larson as well as by Dr. Peter Megaw and Allison Megaw noted room for improvement, mainly in timely delivery of international dealers' shipments through customs. (And the wine list could have been ramped up a notch.)

Last year's show theme was "Mineral Museums," and the Megaws wrote that the Chinese government was working on the development of more than a thousand new natural science museums. Four hundred were opened in 2011 alone, according to a show statement. "Not only have the newly opened museums had great procurement demand in mineral and gem collections," reads the statement, "but also the public." [back to top]

Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed
Now thru August 24, 2014 at DMNS

On Valentine's Day, Denver residents and visitors were treated to chocolate and more—Mayan style—at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. With the opening of a new wing and a new exhibition, Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed, attendees could purchase Mayan-spice truffles, chocolate-covered cacao nibs and sipping chocolate (from Boulder's Piece, Love and Chocolate) in the museum shop and sneak a nibble or three as they browsed.

The mask, above, was found in the tomb of Great Scrolled Skull, a ruler of Santa Rita Corozal in Belize during the Early Classic period (250–900 C.E.). A symbol of power, Great Scrolled Skull probably wore it as an ornament on his belt or on a necklace. The mask's jade, shell, and obsidian were attached to an organic backing that had decomposed, so when it was found, it was a pile of chips that had to be reconstructed. For more on Maya jadeite, see this profile of work by George E. Harlow, curator of the American Museum of Natural History. (Image courtesy of the National Institute of Culture and History and Science Museum of Minnesota)    Below, mosaic ear flares. Ear flares, also known as spools, have had a resurgence in popularity in recent years. The Maya believed that the ears—like the eyes, mouth and nostrils—were pathways to the mind, soul and other spiritual dimensions. (Photo courtesy National Institute of Culture and History)

The exhibition is the largest concerning the Ancient Maya ever to be displayed in the United States. (Having left Minneapolis, it will travel to Boston's Museum of Science Oct. 10, 2014 thru May 3, 2015, and the San Diego Natural History Museum June 12, 2015 thru January 3, 2016.) On display are more than 250 Mayan artifacts, including jewelry, stonework, astronomical and calendrical devices, burial objects, tools, and more. One hands-on exhibit explains the method of dental modification, i.e., use of a bow drill to allow placement of decorative stones in incisors.

Above, incisors decorated with stones. Note that the teeth also are filed—as well as filled. (Photo courtesy Science Museum of Minnesota) Below, a gold mask ornament. It is hammered and delicately embossed. Made from imported gold, this eye piece once decorated the ceremonial mask of a priest or ruler. Writhing feathered serpents formed "brows" above the eye holes. (Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 10-71-20/C7679, 98600128)

The exhibition planning began in 2008, followed by the exhibit team's first stop at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and a tour of the museum's Maya collection. Also visited were the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard, the National Institute of Culture and History, and the San Diego Museum of Man. In addition to contributions by these institutions were textiles from Maya villages in the Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, as well as artifacts from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

This halved conch shell makes an elegant ink pot for mixing and storing paints. Although often depicted in Maya artwork, few of these have survived. (Image © Science Museum of Minnesota)     Currently on display at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts is Shells: Magic and Science, which includes a beautiful 17th-century goblet (pictured here) fashioned from a Nautilus shell, decorated with a piscine ornament on the coil top and stem in the likeness of Neptune astride a seahorse. Such objects would be found in Renaissance-era Wunderkammern, or cabinets of curiosities.

Maya is the inaugural exhibition for the Denver museum's Anschutz Gallery, part of the 126,000 square foot, five-level, $56.5 million Morgridge Family Exploration Center. In addition to galleries and classrooms, two underground floors—63,000 square feet—are devoted to the Rocky Mountain Science Collections Center, providing consolidated housing for the first time of nearly 1.5 million artifacts and specimens.

From ancient to modern. Iridescent Cloud, by Laura Haddad and Tom Drugan, graces the new wing's Nature Plaza, which fronts the entrance. The faceted "crystals" are suspended between three stainless steel columns. Above, a worker cleans from a hydraulic crane last Thursday, as a section in the foreground awaits installation. "The artists' concept was inspired by the Museum's gems and minerals collection, exhibits about the physical properties of light, and Colorado's dramatic sun and sky," according to a press release. (Photos: David Hughes, above; Reed Roles, below)

Denver also is home to a massive, 3,000-piece collection of pre-Columbian objects, including ornaments made from jadeite, gold, turquoise, shell, obsidian, and more. This collection is housed at the Denver Museum of Art, and you won't have to obtain permission to view it in the basement. Nearly the entire collection is open for permanent viewing on level 4 of the museum's North Building, and made inventively accessible via cruciform display cases that make for efficient use of space.

For even more on pre-Columbian jadeite, Dr. Harlow points us to the following.

• Precolumbian Jade, a Proceedings Volume from a Conference on Middle American Jade, F.W. Lange, ed., Salt Lake City, UT, University of Utah Press, 1993; includes Dr. Harlow's contribution
• Harlow, G.E., Sisson, V.B., and Sorensen, S.S. Jadeitite from Guatemala: New observations and distinctions among multiple occurrences. Geologica Acta, 9(3–4), Sep–Dec 2011, 363–387; available here

Cocoa Puffs

And this just in: a Valentine's Day warning from Jezebel.com (billed as "a general-interest women's website) regarding the marketing of Chocolate Diamonds^®. Weighing in is Dr. George Harlow. Call it "cognac," call it "champagne," call it "caramel," it still starts with a "B." [back to top]

Black Hats: Tucson in Pictures

On Sunday, Pala people wrapped another Tucson show. We leave you with a few candid shots.

Howdy, partenaire. The always raffish Brice Gobin visits the Pala International booth at the 60th Annual Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. (Photo: Bill Larson)

Sochi strays? Misha Anosov (Russkie Mineraly: Russian Minerals), Prof. Dr. Viktor Garanin (Russian Academy of Sciences), Pala International's Bill Larson, Maria Alferova, Victor Nekrasov. Dr. Garanin is the director of the A.E. Fersman Mineralogical Museum in Moscow and Alferova is a senior researcher there. Originally founded in 1716 in St. Petersburg, the museum is one of the world's largest, housing more than 135,000 items. Bill Larson was a guest of the Fersman Museum in 1989. He was flown from Moscow by Aeroflot to evaluate tourmaline in the Lake Bikal district. (Photo: Carl Larson)

You missed a spot. Pala boothmates Wayne A. Thompson (of Ikons fame) and Alain Martaud tidy up the place a bit. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it—and to supervise—and document. (Photo: Will Larson)

Who's minding the museums? At the party hosted by Gail Spann and Jordi Fabre, enjoying a little R&R after a hard day's shopping on behalf of world-class collections, left to right: Dr. George Harlow (curator, American Museum of Natural History, who features in a story above), Mike Rumsey (curator of minerals, Natural History Museum, London), Katherine Dunnell (technician, Royal Ontario Museum), Dr. Raquel Alonso-Perez (curator, Mineralogical and Geological Museum at Harvard, wearing Carl Larson's hat!), Alan Hart (head of mineral collections, Natural History Museum), Kristina Bode (Mineralien Welt magazine), and Bill Larson. (Photo: Patsy Declines-to-State)

Warming up the crowd. Paul S. Harter, right, prominent mineral collector and chair of the 60th Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, introduces Bill Larson before Bill's Valentine's Day presentation on "The Gem and Crystal treasures of the mythical Valley of Mogok." (Photo: Will Larson)

Safety first. David P. Wilber, of What's Hot In Tucson fame, takes no chances, situating himself near a fire extinguisher. Missed last year's show? Check out the 2013 trailer, which is available on DVD or streaming HD. Friends of Pala International get a 10% discount on any BlueCap order. Just enter the code  palaintl when you're asked for it while ordering. (Photo: Bill Larson)

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Pala's Featured Stones: Aquamarine from Madagascar

This month we feature a pair of stunning aquamarines from Madagascar. This gem-riddled island off the coast of southeast Africa is known for producing a wide variety of gem minerals from its extensive network of pegmatites. Beryls grow large in these parts and a new discovery of natural blue aquamarine just hit the market at this year's Tucson show. These aquamarines have strong natural blues hues with flawless interiors. This pair exhibits the quintessential color for aquamarine and each is precision cut into 14-mm round brilliants.

Tucson treasure. Natural aquamarine from Madagascar, 14.12 x 14.12 x 9.83 mm, Inventory #21660. These are brand new, acquired at the Tucson show. Price available upon request. (Photo: Mia Dixon)

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Pulse Pick

Gem Market Pulse is an occasional freebie offered by the publishers of The GemGuide, the preeminent trade publication for gemstone wholesalers. This month, the Pulse included fluorite as its featured gem, accompanied by a fluorite trio captured by Pala International's in-house photographer Mia Dixon. We thought we'd share it with our readers.

Triple Play. Green, 9.25 ct, 14.7 x 11.7 x 7.5 mm from the UK; orange, 5.30 ct, 10 x 10 x 7 mm from Switzerland; yellow, 14.22 ct, 14.6 x 11.2 x 9.9 mm from France. As explained in the Pulse, fluorite can be quite affordable, yet it's often overlooked. (Photo: Mia Dixon)

To sign up for the free subscription, visit The GemGuide website and select Subscriber Login > Register. [back to top]

Beautiful Blues

Pala International has opened up a new relationship with a supplier overseas who is directly involved with zircon coming out of Cambodia. Our new supplier is one of the biggest buyers of rough material produced by the mines and they are heating and cutting in their facilities as well.

Pala has been buying these beautiful blue zircons for years, but we have hit the mother lode this time. These stones feature stunning electric blue colors in big sizes, matched pairs—just about every shape and size you could imagine in the top color.

Photo showing the crude yet productive devices build for heating the zircon. Precise temperature, timing and cooling are required to hit the prime color. In the oven a little too long or the wrong temperature and you could end up with an off color.

Excellent example of the brown material before heat, left, and the blue material after heat on the right.

A view of the faceting operation that produces beautiful blue zircons.

Interested? Browse the inventory of blue zircons, call (phone numbers below) or email us to inquire. [back to top]

Natural and synthetic vanadium-bearing chrysoberyl

A study by Dr. Karl Schmetzer, Dr. Michael S. Krzemnicki, Thomas Hainschwang and Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bernhardt

The subject of a new study, led by Dr. Karl Schmetzer on natural and synthetic vanadium-bearing chrysoberyl, would fit nicely in the upcoming Sinkankas Symposium, which will look at "peridot and uncommon green-colored gem minerals." The natural material in this study comes from four localities, one of which was examined last summer by Dr. Schmetzer, Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bernhardt and Christopher Cavey (see "Vanadium- and chromium-bearing chrysoberyl from Mogok, Myanmar" on Palagems.com). Writing in Gems & Gemology's "Lab Notes" column ten years ago (2003, 39[2], 144) about a 4.29-carat bright beauty, Wendi M. Mayerson stated, "It is always a pleasure to see a large natural stone with such vivid color and high clarity." Indeed, mint-green chrysoberyl isn't something you see every day.

A natural vanadium-bearing chrysoberyl, from the inventory of Pala International, illustrates the allure of this rare gemstone material. From Tanzania, 3.05 ct, 9.67 x 8 x 8 mm. (Photo: Mia Dixon)

The present study was undertaken by Drs. Schmetzer and Bernhardt along with Dr. Michael Krzemnicki and Thomas Hainschwang. It is featured in the current edition of The Journal of Gemmology (2013, 33[7–8], 223–238) under the title, "Natural and synthetic vanadium-bearing chrysoberyl." Readers of the previous article will be interested to compare the Mogok material against that of the three other sources, Sri Lanka, Tunduru (Tanzania) and Ilakaka (Madagascar). This study should provide the data that is lacking on coloration and other properties of vanadium-bearing chrysoberyl, both natural and synthetic.

The study begins with an overview of bright green chrysoberyl that entered the market in the mid 1990s—faceted stones so clean that they were suspected to be synthetic. Trace-element analysis detected natural samples that hailed from Tunduru, in southern Tanzania, and which obtained their coloration from vanadium (V) rather than chromium (Cr). Unlike Cr-bearing chrysoberyl (alexandrite), this material displayed no color change between daylight and incandescent light. Had it equal amounts of Cr and V, like some Indian chrysoberyl, a slight color change, from green in daylight to pale grayish green in incandescent light, could have been observed. The discussion then turns to characteristics of synthetic alexandrite as well as synthetic, nearly Cr-free chrysoberyl.

The authors note the paucity of published data on V-bearing, non-phenomenal chrysoberyl from sources other than Tunduru. And to the authors' knowledge, only one study containing the polarized spectrum of synthetic V-bearing chrysoberyl—produced by what's known as the Czochralski method—has been published (in 1980 in a Russian journal that is not easily accessible). So there is much room for filling in the holes.

The synthetic material consisted of three pieces of rough and 12 faceted samples from the Kyoto Ceramic Corporation, or Kyocera, comparable to the Czochralski method. Twenty-seven natural rough and faceted samples, all with V greater than Cr, were obtained. The samples were examined using standard instrumentation for gemological and microscopic properties (inclusions and growth structures). Inclusions were identified in six of the mostly very clean natural samples by Raman microspectrometry. Chemical data were obtained for all the samples by electron microprobe or X-ray fluorescence analysis. Absorption spectra were recorded, both non-polarized and polarized, and colorimetric data were also obtained for part of the chrysoberyls.

Rough and cut V-bearing synthetic chrysoberyl grown by Kyocera Corporation. The top-right piece weighs 10.5 g and measures 15.5 × 15.5 × 14.4 mm; the faceted samples weigh 0.49–1.33 ct. (Photo: Karl Schmetzer)

In the synthetic samples, the color was bright green in both incandescent light and daylight; pleochroism was weak in the faceted material, but quite clear in the rough. The dominant color-causing trace element in the synthetic group was vanadium; only tiny traces of chromium and iron were detected occasionally.

Color comparison of faceted V-bearing chrysoberyl from various localities and synthetic chrysoberyl grown by Kyocera Corp. The chrysoberyl from Ilakaka weighs 2.09 ct and measures 9.1 × 7.2 mm. Click to enlarge. (Photos: Karl Schmetzer)

The color variation of the natural samples corresponded with the pleochroism that was observed, regardless of origin. Thus all intense and very intense green stones displayed X = yellowish green, Y = green and Z = bluish green, about the same as in the synthetics. Dominant color-causing trace elements are either vanadium (Tunduru and Ilakaka) or a combination of vanadium and chromium (Sri Lanka and Myanmar). The greater the vanadium and chromium concentration, the more intense the green; the yellowish green samples from Sri Lanka had the highest concentration of iron, and in samples from Mogok, the highest vanadium and chromium concentration was detected. UV-Vis spectra show superimposed vanadium and chromium absorptions, as well as minor iron-related absorption bands.

Colorimetric parameters for two V- and Cr-bearing, Fe-rich chrysoberyls from Sri Lanka (with V>Cr), and V-bearing, Fe- and Cr-free synthetic chrysoberyl from Kyocera are plotted for daylight and incandescent light in the CIELAB color circle. The neutral point (white point) is in the center of the a*b* coordinate system and the outer circle represents a chroma of 40. The black circles plot the color coordinates in daylight D65 and the other ends of the differently colored bars represent the coordinates of the same samples in tungsten light A. The V-, Cr- and Fe-bearing chrysoberyls from Sri Lanka show a small color variation from yellow green to greenish yellow, whilst the V-bearing, Fe- and Cr-free synthetic chrysoberyls from Kyocera shift slightly from green to bluish green.

Growth structures and crystal morphology of chrysoberyl and alexandrite already had been documented by Dr. Schmetzer (Journal of Gemmology, 2011, 32[5–8], 129–144; see abstract). Interestingly, growth structures were not observed in the Kyocera material, whereas they have been seen in material grown by the horizontally oriented crystallization method (alexandrites grown by this technique have already been studied by Schmetzer et al. in Journal of Gemmology, (2013, 33[5–6], 113–129; see abstract). Morphology of the rough samples from Tunduru, Ilakaka and Sri Lanka provided a challenge due to their origin from secondary deposits, rendering them waterworn and broken. Using goniometric measurements and observation of internal growth structures, some samples allowed for a complete morphology, which is illustrated in the article via idealized drawings.

Just as growth structures were not observed in the Kyocera synthetics in this study, inclusions were almost entirely absent, save for the rare gas bubble. The natural material, on the other hand, contained a variety of inclusions, e.g. apatite, feldspar or calcite, with the exception of the Sri Lanka samples.

As the authors point out, the facetable vanadium-bearing chrysoberyl gemstones included in their study should pique the interest of the discriminating collector. Should more of this material become available, especially the attractive Burma bluish green stones (which came to the researchers from collections where they had been housed since the 1970s), gemologists and jewelers will have the information, via the present study, that they need to separate synthetic from natural material, at the very least. The study also demonstrates the value of more rigorous laboratory testing.

Also in the current edition of The Journal of Gemmology is a report on another green gemstone, not quite as obscure as vanadium-bearing chrysoberyl. "Peñas Blancas: An historic Colombian emerald mine," by Ron Ringsrud and Edward Boehm, takes readers into a mine that had been closed to outsiders for more than twenty years. This mine, in the famous Muzo region of Colombia, may be less renowned than the Muzo, Coscuez and La Pita mines, but as can be seen in the image above, it produces gorgeous gems. These nine emeralds, faceted from a 22-gram Peñas Blancas crystal also pictured in the article, weigh 32.90 carats in total. The large heart shape weighs ~9 ct. (Photo: Ron Ringsrud)    Pearl lovers will want to peruse "Tracing cultured pearls from farm to consumer: A review of potential methods and solutions" by Dr. Henry A. Hänni and Laurent E. Cartier, in the same edition of Journal of Gemmology. It's a fascinating overview of locality fingerprinting methods facilitated by pearls' porosity, the isotopes that reflect pearls' farm waters, and even DNA.

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Burma Bits

Jade jottings…

A single jade boulder weighing 15 tons was found Hpakant, Kachin State, on February 9, according to the February 13 edition of the official New Light of Myanmar daily. The football-shaped boulder is 20 feet square. It was found far from the established jade operations, in a vacant plot. It was being guarded by three parties: the local military battalion, police and staff of the Hpakant Township Jade Office.

Looking Westward. Pala International's Bill Larson, left, stands with U Kyaw Thaung, at the Westward Look show in Tucson last week. "U Kyaw is one of our Mogok suppliers; I met him back in 1995," Bill told us. "He loved Tucson!"

In other news from Hpakant, Kachin News Group (KNG) reported on January 23 that Burma's military troops in the area "routinely extort money from civilian miners, [according to] jade traders and miners." The story states that "thousands" of miners are working the area, using artisanal methods, whereas mechanized mining has been scaled back or suspended. The post-mechanization state of affairs in Hpakant is the centerpiece of Saturday's editorial by Aung Zaw, founder/editor of the The Irrawaddy, focusing on past and future development in Burma. U.S. assistance to Burma was restricted by legislation signed by President Obama on January 17, as reported the next day by Democratic Voice of Burma. Aid is tied to many issues, including release of political prisoners, fair elections, civil rights barriers still in effect, and prosecution of human rights violators. See also an Irrawaddy interview with Gavin McGillivray, head of the Burma office for the UK Department for International Development, who laments the fact that Burma's extractive industries, including jade, currently are not employing domestic workers, since the material is exported "without being worked."

In January, officials from a "people's voice committee" met with leaders of four Kachin political parties to discuss consolidating their efforts ahead of the 2015 national election, according to a January 27 KNG story.

Hpakant's jade miners were profiled in a Yangon photo exhibition, as reported by The Irrawaddy on January 20. The exhibition, at Witness Yangon Documentary Arts Space, has closed, but the article does include one wide-angle image of a man hand-picking through rubble at the edge of a mine dump in Hpakant.

Gem entrepreneurs meet

The Myanmar Gems and Jewelry Entrepreneurs Association (MGJEA) met a week ago, as reported by Myanma Freedom Daily (MFD) on February 11. At the meeting, the association's chair, Tay Za, complained about U.S. sanctions that still are in place. Burma cannot trade rubies in Belgium, Tay Za said. Chinese trade is open, of course, but he noted that when currency is exchanged, the chain is euro to U.S. dollar to Chinese yuan, a losing proposition.

On the 10th, MFD reported that MGJEA officials would complain to the chief minister of Kachin State about a 1% levy assessed on sales, with the proceeds going towards construction of a road between Hpakant and Moe Kaung.

Jade sales

In the February 11 MFD article, trade statistics were mentioned. Jade exports for the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, already have surpassed those of the 2012–13 fiscal year. So far, 95,000 tons, worth $980 million, have been traded, compared with 97,000 tons, worth $310 million, last year. (Yes, there may be a typo in these stats, which come via the Ministry of Commerce.)

Eleven Media Group reported on Saturday that Burma is $3.7 billion from its FY 2013–14 trade volume goal of $25 billion.

The plot thickens. Small-scale miners may receive plots in Mogok, according to this Democratic Voice of Burma story and video.

Bite-Sized Bits

• Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB): Daylight robbery in Mogok unusual
• DVB: More on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which we discussed in December
• Myanmar Times: A February 2015 vintage car rally, the Myanmar-Burma Road Classic, to visit Mogok ruby land

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With Pala Presents, we offer selections from the collection of Pala International’s Bill Larson, who will share with us some of the wealth of information in the realm of gems and gemology. And, as with this edition, gemstone-related collectibles.

The Joys of Love: Birthstone Collecting Cards

Amethyst, the birthstone for February, is the second in our series of collecting cards that we'll supply over the next twelve months. For more information on birthstones, see Palagems.com.

Other collecting cards for January are available here.

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— End February Newsletter • Published 2/17/14 —