Gemstones & ThailandI had the privilege to travel to Thailand with the American Women's Assocation (AWA) of Singapore. We left on a Wednesday morning and took a two hour flight to Bangkok. There is a new, very controversial airport in Bangkok that has many, many problems - one of which is that the runways are cracking. There had been talk that the old airport would reopen until the new one could be fixed, but we landed at the new one. Traffic in Bangkok is terrible, but we managed to make our way to Chulalongkorn University, where we had a lecture followed by a tour of their gem museum.
After a box lunch onboard the bus, we arrived at Lambert Industries, a Gemstones, Jewelry and Gem Cutting company, owned by Eric Forbes, who is American. We were given a loup, tweezers and an amethyst gem. The presentation at Lambert centered more around gemstone shopping tips especially the various treatments applies to sapphires, rubies and other gems. Some of the trade accepted treatments that do not have to be disclosed include:
heating ruby and sapphire
oil, wax and certain resin/polymer impregnation of emeralds
bleaching pearls white
irradiating blue topaz
dying onyx black
heating of amethyst, aquamarine, citrine, tanzanite, tourmaline, zircon, precious topaz
After the presentations, we were allowed to poke around, open all the drawers with thousands of gems, drool, and shop. Some of the ladies were prepared and brought a design idea and then picked out the gems for it. Lambert makes custom pieces and mails them. You only pay after you receive the jewelry and are satisfied.
It was stressed that it's very difficult to discern whether a gem is real, synthetic or man made. The main gemologist at Lambert has 20+ years of experience and his father was a gemologist as well. It's really all about experience. When you purchase, you should get a certificate from a leading gem institute or take the actual gem to have it tested.
Here is another good tip: If your budget is too small to buy the quality you want of a ruby, sapphire or emerald, consider buying some of the more recently discovered gemstones that are also rare and beautiful. Examples are tsavorite garnet (green), green tourmaline, rubellite tourmaline (red), pink tourmaline, tanzanite, spessartite garnet (orange to reddish orange to orangish red).
That evening, we took a boat ride to the Supatra Riverhouse restaurant for some Royal Thai cuisine. It was a beautiful, balmy evening as we sat, ate and watched the boat traffic on the river.
The following day, we were able to use our newly acquired knowledge to shop at the Bangkok Gems and Jewelry Fair. The fair has an international flair and the booth setups are all very elaborate, much like little shops. There were very few booths to buy gemstones or silver. Mostly it was finished jewelry and very chic. I realized that for my purposes, the shopping at the Intergem Show in Chicago is better if much more chaotic!
The following day, we left early to travel to Chantaburi, about a four hour bus ride. The purpose of our visit was to see an actual sapphire mine and to attend the gem market, which takes place on Saturday mornings.
The gems market is where the gems are traded among the expert traders. They typically rent a table/desk and that becomes their location for the duration of their lease. Lambert's expert gemologist and trader, Noom, has had the same spot for 20 years. It was very exciting to witness the trading. There are runner who carry the gems back and forth between the buyer and seller. Offers are made and countered many times before they agree on a sales price. Sometimes the deal falls through and another trader snaps it up.
After the gems market, we boarded the bus to return to the airport and our flight back to Singapore.
