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Author Topic: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary  (Read 10909 times)

Gem Ranger

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Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« on: October 29, 2014, 05:26:50 PM »
Hi All,

I figured I'd share the following experience with you. After many years in lapidary I recently decided why not try to make a little money out of it. I figured faceting gemstones would be a little too labour intensive so I looked around for a faceted gemstone supplier. I eventually found a dealer in Pakistan. After a bit of negotiation I bought the pictured parcel of faceted tourmaline - 48ct, 31 stones for $563 delivered. That's $11.73 per carat. Payment was via Paypal and the transaction went fine.
I received the stones and they we ok albeit paler than the photo and of course commercially cut. The facet edges were also a little rough when viewed under magnification but OK when viewed without.
After sorting I lost 19cts increasing the cost to just under $20 per carat. I figured the retail price on this material would be roughly $150 per carat so plenty of margin to make a profit. After much phoning around and jewellery store visits in my local area, I soon learnt that cut stones are very difficult to sell, even for a low price. It seems almost all jewellery stores have their supply chains sorted and that theres on over supply of faceted stones from overseas. Anyhow, after a while I just gave up ... and lesson learnt.



If anyone else has any positive or negative lapidary related money making experiences to share, this is the place to post  :)

GR
« Last Edit: October 31, 2014, 12:56:21 PM by Gem Ranger »

Aussie Sapphire

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2014, 05:43:29 PM »
After much phoning around and jewellery store visits in my local area, I soon learnt that cut stones are very difficult to sell, even for a low price. It seems almost all jewellery stores have their supply chains sorted and that there's an over supply of faceted stones from overseas. Anyhow, after a while I just gave up ... and lesson learnt.
GR

This is common - and not only for stones from overseas.  Even when we were offering Australian sapphires of high quality with known provenance and single supply chain from mine to store, it was bloody difficult.

I think what most dont appreciate is that the standard jewellery shop is now just a retailer of "stuff" with arrangements in place for sourcing their "stuff".  Now that most dont make jewellery and a lot dont even do any bench repair work, they have lost appreciation for gemstones - it is just about buying and selling and the simpler/cheaper the better.  And the prices in the wholesale market are lower than most would realise so very difficult to go in and offer a price that would be of interest to them.

This is a generalisation applying to the standard shop you mostly see - still lots of great work being done out there but tends to be individuals working in an isolated fashion.

We get a lot of people enquiring about selling collections of cut stone - perhaps a family member has passed away and they want to sell the gems that are of little interest to them.  Unfortunately, there is very little they can do to achieve a fair value for them. We usually have very little practical advice beyond set them, enjoy them, give them away as gifts but dont expect to make a lot of money.

This is probably why a lot of faceters end up wanting to learn silver/gold smithing.

cheers
Leah
Aussie Sapphire - The Lapidary Warehouse

Aussie Sapphire

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2014, 06:10:17 PM »

 Its really not about making money from "Lapidary" is Dealing in Cut stone thats a way different Beast :D
  Good locally Cut Gems can make Money but its a Niche Business and Lucky to sell much into Jewellery Shops as really they are mostly to Lazy to grab the opportunity to ride on the exclusive nature of real Gemstones.
 
 In short there is Money in Gems but Buying cut stone from overseas is very risky,consider all Tourmaline to be Heated without Disclosure unless you no the Miner,wholesale costs for Treated Tourmaline Cut to average standards is Low.

  You Parcel still looks great so enjoy 

 

     
Aussie Sapphire - The Lapidary Warehouse

calebc

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #3 on: October 29, 2014, 08:35:07 PM »
All too true  :(, Iam a manufacturing jeweller and when we do a make using coloured stones unless the customer has supplied the stones they are usually purchased from one of two or three large suppliers, Whilst they produce fairly well cut stones they are certainly nothing to phone home about,but they are generally fairly well priced and have almost everything you could want. So a lot of jewellers will stick to the large suppliers. Another hard thing is that whilst jewellers, lapidary artists or fossickers know what they are looking at and understand what is being talked about the vast majority of those buying jewellery Know the big four.

Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald and Diamond,  should see the puzzled looks i get when i tell a customer that a ruby is in essence a red sapphire,  when you start to talk about tourmaline, morganite, aquamarine, tanzanite, zircon honestly the list is endless  customers just pure and simple don't know what the hell you're on about  so the demand on them is not that great,

Being a jeweller aswell as a fossicker though i personally would love to see a supplier of nice coloured stones walk through the door nothing like supporting local !!

a little of topic haha sorry

Capt. Mendoza

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2014, 12:59:07 AM »
Can't compete with wholesalers! So I don't try... Best to develop a neesh market if you can find a market that is...

Nice looking stones by the way!
8)  www.JewelleryPirate.com.au/blog - The Jewellery Pirate's fossicking adventures...

southerly

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2014, 06:40:55 AM »
Thanks for posting your personal story gem ranger greatly appreciated. While I have not attempted to make money from lapidary (I do gifts or trades) I do lecture in marketing at UTS and help companies launch and market new products.

For micro suppliers such as the lone lapidary the most successful strategy is often to find and concentrate on a customer niche, and learn and service that. A small niche reduces the investment required (think of the millions of dollars Aussie Sapphire has tied up in inventory if you want to compete in the lapidary equipment supply space), it also lets you get to know your customers very very well and build trusting relationships, it also keeps you under the radar of the larger organisations so you get left alone.

In Australia as we simply cannot source lapidary material at the price that the mass cutting markets can (even Australian material sadly), nor do we pay the low wages they can, so competing in the mass produced space is almost impossible. That said there are many who sell lapidary products at local markets using mass produced cheap items as stock, their niche being the geographic distribution rather than difference/quality in the product.

As far as making lapidary products for sale there are always those consumers who are willing to pay for something different and value uniqueness and craftsmanship, you just have to find them, and find exactly what they want and deliver it.

Aussie Sapphire

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2014, 08:03:31 AM »
A small niche reduces the investment required (think of the millions of dollars Aussie Sapphire has tied up in inventory if you want to compete in the lapidary equipment supply space)

I try not to think about it - a bit scary  8)

Quote
As far as making lapidary products for sale there are always those consumers who are willing to pay for something different and value uniqueness and craftsmanship, you just have to find them, and find exactly what they want and deliver it.

Good advice.  There are lots out there doing exactly this and some are doing well.  You just tend not to see them in your garden variety jewellery shop on the main drag.  Mostly these will be online and communicating directly with customers or working from home with a small network of contacts to refer work or commissions, etc.  They have found a niche and some work it well.

The average customer who would normally frequent a chain store jeweller are generally not aware of the fantastic range of other gems available to them and have not seen good quality in the big 4 but there are people out there who do appreciate this and if you can find them, then sales are possible (just not easy).

cheers
Leah
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Aussie Sapphire

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #7 on: October 30, 2014, 08:09:15 AM »
there are always those consumers who are willing to pay for something different and value uniqueness and craftsmanship, you just have to find them, and find exactly what they want and deliver it.

This reminds me of a time when we sold a sapphire to a customer in Canada for an engagement ring. He knew what he wanted but it took some to-ing and fro-ing between us to get exactly the right stone and organise the logistics.

There were a lot of emails about the design of the ring and what type of stone would work. Then when we finally sent the stone (via post), he realised that he had moved from one side of Canada to the other and because Canada Post is notoriously slow at clearing parcels, it might get delayed and he would have already moved to new address - panic and more emails !! 

He eventually got the gemstone and was thrilled with it.  But when I went back through the email conversation, there were 76 emails relating to the transaction.  He was happy - for us, it was HARD WORK !!

Even when it works out, it is sometimes hard.

cheers
Leah
Aussie Sapphire - The Lapidary Warehouse

Gem Ranger

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #8 on: October 30, 2014, 12:22:27 PM »
Thanks for the replies  :)
In hindsight doing the market research prior to purchase would have been the smarter way to go. I guess I got a bit blinded by the low price thinking that turning a profit would be a sure thing. Anyhow, at the end of the day its only a small amount of money. If I get desperate enough I guess theres always Ebay  ;)

Cheers,
GR

Ghost

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2014, 04:06:52 PM »
They look very nice.
Silversmiths at your local lapidary club might be willing to take a few off your hands for you.
Ghost

nunamal

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #10 on: October 30, 2014, 05:02:43 PM »
I am a newbie as far as cut stones go, but I am sure you could move some of those beautiful stones Droo in the for sale section(or is that not the done thing?) Either way if you notify people here I'm sure they'll go Regards Mal

agemcutr

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #11 on: October 30, 2014, 08:41:02 PM »
That's why I don't cut and try to sell my own stones. I rarely ever got more than the cost of the rough and a cutting fee anyway. The jewellery trade would always open there Boltons gem book and say its worth this per carat regardless of how good it was cut.
In the end I became a gem repairer and now cut only other peoples rough. I earn a reasonable living but since the stroke small stones aren't an option for me as I cant see the facets or control the cheating like I used to do.

harryopal

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #12 on: October 31, 2014, 04:04:51 PM »
Good afternoon Gem Ranger and other enthusiasts.

You asked for other experiences so here are some reflections. When I first became interested in lapidary back in the 80s I learned how to facet courteousy of my local lapidary club, Western Suburbs in Melbourne. I soon realized that unless you were faceting for the love of it and seeking perfection there was little prospect of getting a return for your labour given the incredibly cheap prices for which stones are faceted overseas. I figured at least with opal there was still an opportunity for some return on cutting and polishing opal.
I undertook an introduction to gemmology course which taught me just how complicated is the world of gems and precious stones and how easy it is to get skinned without expert knowledge. Nonetheless I remain fascinated with stones, precious and otherwise. These days unless you are a gemmologist and have easy access to a laboratory the endless varietes of treatments to stones natural and synthetic is such that again it is almost impossible to be sure about what you are buying.
Even on the gemstone fields across the world people will often slip in treated stones glass or fakes in packets of genuine gems.
These days I have a small African handcraft shop and have been able to incorporate my interest in stones and making items of jewellery. I always display information about heating or treatment and am ever cautious about some of the `perect stones' which are sent as `natural'. If i have doubts I indicate `laboratory treated' to be on the safe side.
I can understand that for shops selling gems and items containing gems where the ethics are declaration it must feel hard to offer an item and starting with a negative. As in, '.... of course this beautiful sapphire has been heat treated which is why it is so cheap.'
A bit like car dealers being required to say... `' well of course the motor will require major work within the next two years... but Hey, it's a great car.'
Personally I would rather give out the negatives than feel I had cheated someone but I can understand how that does not always happen where a potential buyer just sees sparkle and price.
I have been buying a bit of Ethiopian fire opal which is often heated or `smoked' in the case of the Ethiopian `black opal.' I find I can declare the treatments and sell at a low price and still make a profit. And while the jewellery items which I make are crude at least they are unique.
It seems `black opal' from Ethiopia has been sold without indicating the country of origin so that buyers may assume it is Australian `black opal' from Lightning Ridge.
With all the pitfalls it is nonetheless a fascinating field of interest and it seems the more I know the less I know.

Have fun with your treasures.

Yours tropically, Harry

harryopal

Gem Ranger

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Re: Making (or loosing) money from lapidary
« Reply #13 on: October 31, 2014, 04:59:45 PM »
Cheers all and keep those experiences coming. Luv your quote Harry - A bit like car dealers being required to say... `' well of course the motor will require major work within the next two years... but Hey, it's a great car.'  ;D ;D

GR

 

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