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(Honey quartz (heat-treated quartz).)
By Arizona Bead Dog
1. Cheaters abound.
Several expectations are in place at the Gem Show: exhibitors (sellers, vendors) want to sell at good prices to make money, buyers want to get bargains or the best price. Everyone’s looking out for the cheaters: buyers don’t trust exhibitors because they’re baiting and switching; exhibitors don’t trust buyers because they’re trying to get something for a lot less than it’s worth.
If you understand these transactional principals, you’re on your way to avoiding mix-ups.
To understand what you’re buying sounds deceptively easy. You’re standing right there, holding the beads or mineral, asking the vendor the price and what the stone is. And for exhibitors, helping the buyer understand what the price is seems simple enough. Problems: Multiple bead strands with similar beads but different prices, language barrier, and no plan to address problems with the first two areas.
Here’s what happened to me. I was holding four hanks; three were different. One of the exhibitors gave the prices – four times – once for each strand. After pulling several strands from each hank, a different exhibitor was now in the room. Ready to pay, I handed the strands to the exhibitor, who now calculated the price higher than what I’d calculated. Then the first exhibitor came back into the room and gave a yet higher price, explaining that because the two strands had larger beads, they were more expensive. As we all know, however, this is not universally true. Apologizing for my misunderstanding, I left the room without buying the strands.
Lesson: Be clear about prices; be prepared to make an appropriate offer if the situation seems like honest mistakes all the way around.
2. Misspellings & fancy names.
Spelling issues can lead to confusion. For example, cavenite versus cavensite, apatite versus apetite. They are not four different minerals. My understanding is that cavensite and apatite are the proper spellings for these teal-colored minerals. (I’m working to correct the misspelling of cavensite on this site. I didn’t misspell it because I was guessing — the exhibitor spelled it for me.)
Fancy names is another confusing aspect about buying gems. This happens with quartz. For example, there is strawberry quartz and pineapple quartz. Unfortunately, they aren't quartz; they're glass. Amethyst and citrine are quartz, but are green quartz and honey (or lemon for that matter) quartz genuine quartz? Yes. They are heat-treated quartz. Sometimes, gemstones come in many different colors than the ones we’re used to associating the gemstone with, like sapphire, for instance. Traditionally, we know it as a blue stone, but it comes in many other colors, and these colors have descriptive names, like “tundra" sapphires. If you see a strand of deeply rose-colored tourmaline, you will hear it called rubellite.
Lesson: Exhibitors don’t know everything. Buyers must research what they like or are interested in ahead of time, or use their BlackBerry or laptop to ferret out a quick answer while they’re gem-show shopping. I’m convinced that many of the exhibitors aren't lying; they're just ill-informed. And exhibitors really should know and tell everything about what they’re selling. Most buyers simply want to know the truth of it; it doesn’t stop them from buying it.
3. If it can be faked, it has been faked.
Here’s another potential flashpoint between buyers and sellers. Many buyers are looking for “natural” stones. Many sellers are selling natural stones. What they may fail to mention is that the natural stone (or shell) has been dyed. Sometimes this fact is obvious. Sometimes it isn’t; after all, nature is a vast realm, and many natural things are naturally something we may not know or expect. Additionally, natural stones are oiled, heat-treated, or pulverized and reconstituted — all natural, with a bit of human intervention.
Substitutes are tricky. Turquoise may be one of the most misidentified stone at the Gem Show. It’s both a color, of course, as well as a natural stone prized for its color. Magnesite and howlite are two minerals often dyed and substituted as turquoise. Some turquoise is natural and not stabilized; look around and get used to what this looks like. Most turquoise is stabilized, some is pulverized (reconstituted), and yet other stones are called turquoise but aren’t, such as African Turquoise (a jasper, from my understanding).
Here’s something I learned from an honest exhibitor. I was looking at ruby, emerald, and sapphire strands — you know, the larger stones that are opaque, sometimes with visible striations — and I commented that I liked the emeralds. The vendor had a flash of pain cross his face, then he reluctantly explained that those were not emeralds, but dyed sapphires. Mmmm. Dyed sapphires. Okay. Then, at a different vendor, who was forthright without any pangs or doubts about honesty, told me that what I was looking at was dyed quartz. Either way, of course, these strands deliberately mimicked more expensive stones (well, I think the other exhibitor meant to say quartz, although I suppose there could be a vein of really ugly sapphire that you’d want to color enhance since it still has the mineral structure and properties of sapphire. . . .)
Something else I learned. I love tourmaline, and it comes in many colors: black, dusky blue, teal, deep rose to light pink, yellow to clear, sienna brown, and greens of all shades. Lately, I’ve noticed tourmaline strands with a wonderful bright teal "tourmaline" bead interspersed throughout the strand. But when the beads are small, and the teal bead is clear and bright, you can bet that it may very well be apatite and not tourmaline. I am sometimes concerned that certain tourmaline strands have in them not only mixed apatite, but also glass.
Lesson: Be aware of the various substitutions and treatments natural stones can be subjected to; inform yourself about a stone you’re particularly interested in. The key is to know that you are buying dyed jade, quartz, aventurine, or whatever, instead of the stone it is trying to mimic. As for exhibitors, you should never fear the truth about what you’re selling unless you are truly trying to trick the customer. Again, many customers don’t necessarily care about what a particular bead is or isn't, but they need to know the truth so when they re-sell the strand, they aren’t perpetuating a lie. Which brings up another point: this is why buyers go to the same vendors year after year: they've found vendors they trust.
4. Size matters.
I have good visual memory for placement, and this lets me recall where exhibitors are located and what beads they had on their table. I also have good color memory. Both are innate and if you have them you know it; if you don’t have them, you take notes about where vendors are located and consult your show guide maps, and you bring samples with you. I do not, however, have good size memory. It’s tough for me to remember whether a bead strand I saw was 6 mm or 8 mm. But any of these potential areas of deficit are a problem when you try to compare prices. Prices are based on a variety of factors, including the exhibitor, the stone’s color, the extra work done to it (faceting, carving, shaping), and its size. Problem: You can feel cheated if you think an exhibitor has sold something for a higher price than what he should have based on other exhibitors’ prices.
Lesson: What I’ve consistently found is that it has been my deficiencies that resulted in these feelings because when I got home to compare my purchases, I saw that I got what I paid for. Of course, this isn’t universally true, but if you have a deficiency in one of these areas, act to minimize its effect on your purchases or even from whom you decide to buy.
(Kyanite.)
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