The Trouble with Photos

One of the criticisms I hear the most regarding my shop is that my pictures, well – suck.  Ok, nobody puts it that way and that’s really nice.  But they could be much better.  Or maybe they couldn’t.  I kind of think they can’t but I’d love to be convinced otherwise!  Comments are welcome.

Let’s start by talking about light.  There are nice daylight lamps on the market, most color gem dealers have them.  You can build a light box (white box, open on top for light, the white then reflects the light all over and increases its power.  The daylight lamps shine in from the top, usually people use at least two, sometimes four or five.  That eliminates any extinction that is caused by the lighting coming from only one direction.

My thing about the daylight lamps is that I just can’t stand the way they change color.  And it is nearly impossible to change that color back to what the gem really looks like by adjusting the color after.  There is a certain vibrance that daylight lends to a gem which daylight lamps can’t imitate (Mandarin garnet suffers from loss of vibrance under daylight lamps).  Also, some gems actually pick up in color (purple sapphire is an example).  Others (blue sapphire) grey out.  I see this happening a lot when I purchase gems in indoor lighting.  Despite really strong daylight bulbs, it is really hard to make out the true color of certain gems.  With sapphire it is the worst (for me).  I have to take every single piece outdoors.  Most dealers that know me know this about me, and many appreciate it because it means you know what you are doing.  And if the gems are nice, taking them outdoors is a compliment to them.

I don’t use daylight lamps for photos.  I use daylight.  But there are drawbacks.  I use my window sill because when you use actual daylight you need a lot of it.  But unless you can get the daylight to come from directly behind you, you get the gems to show extinction.  Direct sunlight doesn’t work, the contrasts are too strong and you end up with strong shadows. Diffused daylight is best, but bright. Ideal lighting, to me, is when you sit in the shade on a bright sunny day.  I can only achieve that effect outdoors, not on my windowsill (and this is a problem in winter, plus I’m on the 4^th floor, I have a roof deck but I don’t like to go out on a cold and windy day).  Rainy days grey out a lot of gems (i.e. sapphire, mint garnet, Ceylon spinel).  Probably they just enhance the grey that is inherent in some of the gems, and so they look more drab.

Even with all this practice and preparation, a lot of times my photos come out too blue (especially my cell phone photos which are otherwise very crisp).  I’ve been told that all cameras, maybe even those in cell phones, can be adjusted for color accuracy in the camera itself.  (Just like a monitor can be adjusted).  In my case I’ve not yet managed.  So I adjust afterwards for color temperature, using my hand shots for reference (I know the color of my hands, which makes it easier). 

Too blue, you can tell from the "white" padded background

The direction of the light is also important.  If the gem is too tilted, the table will look white.  Or it shows tilt window, which almost all colored stones have and which forces you to photograph the gem straight on (hard to do when the light comes from only one direction).

Table is too white

In case you are wondering, I use a Nikon D5100, with the regular lens.  The camera is almost 3 years old now, so I could probably upgrade.  But I don’t know how much that would change things. 

A "good" photo

As you all know, gems thrive in the right light.  Or they “die” on you.  So the correct light, which produces the correct color, is everything.  Some gems also glow more in certain lighting.  Real paraibas show this.  Late daylight is wonderful for them.  Sapphires look better in mid-day in my view.  Morning light is often cooler than evening light, and winter light is different from summer light.  All this can affect what you see.  And – once everyone uses LED lights – say goodbye to the wonderful color change effect that some gems have.  I can see it only in my bathroom and that’s where I take all my color change photos.  :)

Cecile Raley Designs: Behind the Scenes

Perhaps some of you are wondering how it works. How things get done so fast - sometimes, and then painstakingly slow other times. How things get made, who makes them. Or what you need to run a business like mine. So here goes.

In my home office, there's just me and 2-3 days a week, my very cool friend Debbie. Two days a week we're out, making "runs" in New York. 

I work 7 days a week but not all day every day. I start right after waking up. Etsy questions, convos, listings, photos. That takes about two hours.  When Debbie comes in, she ships.  When she doesn't, I ship.  Shipping can sometimes take half a day.  Etsy insurance doesn't cover gems,  Ship Station does, PayPal does, the latter only up to $500. So we use different services. Payment plans require checking for total amount paid before insuring and all parts of the payment plan (or custom order) need to be checked as shipped.  Ring sizes have to be double checked, custom orders checked one last time, and if a second person is there, all packages are gone through twice to make sure no content got mixed up.

Debbie, My Assistant and Friend

By the time that's all done I usually already have more custom requests, so I take more photos and answer questions. I make a lot of quotes. I go though invoices, do some bookkeeping. In between we do Facebook, Pinterest, other social media, newsletter, blog, we order supplies and castings.  It easily takes all day.

Most of my time is taken up with customers and Etsy itself.  Most of Debbie's job is shipping and social media.  But we also switch off with that, with photographs and other stuff.

Twice a week I go to 47th street to process orders. Those are very busy days!  I am often off to a late start because I have so much Etsy traffic. So Debbie gets there first, going directly from her house, picks up castings and gets them to out pre-polish service - they cut the sprue, clean and tumble. New designs make it from there to Alex, the engraver, then go back to Taba Casting for a mold and castings.

Buying Supplies in New York City (Actually this is Cheese)

Our custom orders each have designated jewelry envelopes with customer name, order date, metal, size or length and order description or drawing. All the order steps are listed and get checked as we go (i.e. casting, parts needed, pre-polish, jewelry work, setting, final polish). Many steps are the same for each piece.  So we essentially funnel the envelopes through 4-6 stops a piece, leaving them at many stops for 2-3 days, and quality checking each time. Some days we pick up or drop at the lab, requesting certificates. On other days I have appointments at various gem dealers while Debbie does the "runs" between stops with the "jobs." We text each other all day long, double checking what is where or which setting works or which customer needs what.  Some days we run out of time. Plus I have to take breaks answering questions for customers (those are the days when you get convoluted convos with many typos).

"After New York" days are often the busiest.  Custom orders come back and need photos and listings and if possible, are shipped asap.

I love my New York days. I exchange news with Pierre the Setter, Vasken the jeweler, Josh from the lab and Jaimeen from Prima Gems. I find out what's new in gems, what the buzz is on the street, and I get to be out and about. I can take much of the news back to my customers.

Often there are errors to correct, and there can be slow downs (a casting has to be redone, a stone broke, or I don't have all the correct stuff in my bag so a custom piece is delayed). Debbie and I need to plan our day carefully so nothing is forgotten and we don't run out of time. One step is missed and we lose half a week!  It happens though. And often it is our fault because there is too much to think of at once.

I process up to 150 orders a month and half or more are custom. I stick to my wholesale pricing so getting more staff isn't easily paid for. But I love what I do and wouldn't go back to my day job for anything.

Designing Halos with Melee Gems

In the past year, my business has increasingly developed toward custom projects and quotes.  This brings with it a lot of design challenges, and in order to simplify matters a bit on my end, let me share with you some useful information about gemstone melees and how to think about designs involving them.  A melee is considered any gem that is 3mm and smaller. 

First, note that not all gems come in all sizes.  For anything under 1mm, there are really just diamonds available.  Most colored stone melees come in 2mm and up, sometimes 1.5mm and up, and not everything comes in melee.

To calculate the weights of diamond melee, you might use a chart like this one:

Colored gems are often a little bit deeper and a little bit denser in their structure, so they weigh more, too.  The most easily available colored stone melee are sapphires and rubies, but as you know from my shop I also have many others: aquamarine, zircon, mandarin garnet, color change garnet, spinel, tsavorite, mint garnet, peridot, tanzanite, chrysoberyl, among others.  I collect melees because I use them a lot in designs, but for the most part, they are not readily available on the gemstone market.  I don't have all of these in all sizes so you'll have to ask.  Some are hard to replace (i.e. chrysoberyl) and lucky buys, others (sapphires, ruby, tanzanite) I can get almost all the time.

Setting:  the most common setting styles for melees is pinpoint and pave (especially the smaller sizes).

1. Pinpoint setting: this is easier and faster for a setter, hence cheaper - tiny prongs are directly entered into the CAD file.  But making a CAD model with ooodles of tiny prongs is time consuming and expensive.  So it's a wash more or less.

Sapphire Ring with Pinpoint Setting

2. Pave setting: this involves drilling individual holes in the metal and shoving tiny beads over the gems.  The risk here is more breakage, and it costs more time (and money).  The CAD model usually involves a flat surface only.  Sometimes we also put the holes into the model (good for bigger melee, like 2mm). This saves a little on metal weights.  There are two basic pave styles:

a) Bright Cut: This involves a straight line of metal on each side of the gem.  This line has a standard thickness of 1mm.  So if you want bright cut pave on your ring shank, you calculate the width of the melee plus 1mm on each side.  So the smallest is 3mm for a shank.  The bright cut can be millgrained, which is very common these days.  Millgrain often costs a bit extra.  

b) Cut down: this involves no rim, the sides of a ring shank (or halo) are cut down into little scoops with a resulting look almost like prongs.  Cut down pave will look like "all diamond" from the top, so a 3mm ring shank will need 3mm gems, and from the top you will basically just see gemstone and a little bit of prong.  Cut down pave can be expensive because you need bigger stones for a good look, but you can also do a very fine shank with 1mm gems that looks like all diamond.  There are different forms of cut down styles, the one pictured here is a simple scoop, but there are others, like fish tail, or Tiffany style.  You can google them on the web.

Paraiba Tourmeline Ring with Diamond Pave and Millgrain

Closeup of Cut Down Pave with Millgrain

Mint Garnet Ring with Cut Down Pave

Close Up of Cut Down Pave

Note that jewelry design is three dimensional, so you also need to consider the depth of a stone.  On average, a gem is 2/3 as deep as it is wide.  So a 1mm gem is .66 deep.  That's the depth you need for the shank in that case.  Colored stones are deeper.  As a result, you may need almost 3mm depth for a 3mm colored gem, and that makes for a very thick ring or pendant.  In a pendant with a larger center this is less noticeable but a ring shank that is too thick may look weird.

Now let's talk about halo styles more specifically.  A halo is a ring of melee (usually diamonds) around a larger center stone.  Halos add a lot of sparkle, an extra color, and generally enhance the look of a gem.  Standard halos are about 1mm or smaller in size because of the diamond cost.  But you can also go larger for a different look.  The trick is knowing how many gems of what size can fit around a center stone.  Here are some layouts we did for you to see how many options there are for just rounds and ovals (and only a few diamond sizes):

Round Melee Layout

Here's the downloadable layout sheet for you.  The sheet will print out to scale so you can lay gems on it upside down to see which layout they fit.  Printable Round Melee Layout Sheet

Oval Melee Layout

Here's another downloadable layout sheet that will print to scale: Printable Oval Melee Sheet

The next thing you should do is calculate the cost of your halo.  You do this by adding up the total carat weight of the diamonds you use, once you know the gem size you want.  Then you need to know the per carat price of the gems you are using, which is why I've added a rough guide below.  Most colored stones are not very expensive and much of the price is the cutting cost.  Diamonds are another story.  This is a table with two prices, slightly lower end and more fine quality goods.  For up to 2.5mm or just above, prices are usually the same per carat.  3mm involves a price jump.  I have calculated this at my standard markup, so other sellers may have different prices.

F/G Color VS Quality, Swiss Cut	G-H Color, SI Quality, Standard Cut
Below 3mm: $1800/ct Retail	Below 3mm: $1400/ct
3mm: $3600/ct	3mm: $2500/ct

Is there more you'd like to know?  Do you have suggestions for blog entries that help your design efforts?  Please let me know here in the comment box, via FB or Etsy.  I'd love to hear your suggestions.

My thanks to Brandy Belenky, my CAD designer, for helping me with this entry and doing the layouts.

Gem Shows: Past, Present and Future

Traveling to gem shows to shop was a new thing for me this year.  I did go to the Springfield Gem and Mineral Show last fall but I exhibited with my jewelry and gems.  Or rather, I pretended to exhibit because I shared the booth with Jochen Hintze from Jentsch Mineralien, and since nobody was interested in my jewelry (wrong audience), I shopped while Jochen watched my inventory.  Other than that, I regularly attend the JA (Jeweler’s Association) shows in New York, but most of the vendors there are sellers I regularly interact with.  Going to the show just makes it easier to shop. 

Given how successful Tucson and Vegas were for me - I spent money and you spent money, so that is my definition of success in this case – I plan to make these regular trips.  I have to admit that, as a town, Vegas itself was not very exciting for me.  I don’t gamble, although I found that sitting at a slot machine and putting in a few pennies was the fastest way to free coffee.  There are no coffee machines in any hotel rooms so getting coffee involves going downstairs, in the direction of the casinos.    In my five days there I gambled $23, and I walked away with $17 profit.  This was not a bad start, but still, I don’t see that this is where my future lies!  I am also a big fan of daylight, of which there is none in casinos.  Nor are there any clocks, which, for Germans like me, can be anxiety producing.  Not knowing what time it is, is inherently negative for me.

Selecting Hauynites in Vegas

Food in Vegas was great though, only New York is better (yes, I live near New York, so…).  However, the show was fun and every time I go to an exhibit, I connect with new vendors.  Vegas show prices are not as good as those in Tucson, where you can often find strange deals on stuff you didn’t expect.  But the more serious and solid vendors always offer you the same prices (market forces permitting).  So I was there to shop around, to find stuff for customers, and to solidify ties with my sapphire supplier Dudley, as well as with an opal seller from Germany who has hauynites (and opals, too).

The Strip

For fun, when I go to Vegas next year I hope to add a day trip to the Grand Canyon, and in Tucson I want to check out some nearby national parks.  When you are born and raised in Europe, where everything is tiny, the vastness of the mountains and canyons of Arizona and Nevada is unreal.

But let’s get back to business.  Next month, from August 5-9, I will be attending the Springfield Gem and Mineral show again, this time to shop in earnest and without pretending to sell.  There are not many vendors in Springfield that carry what I am interested in, but Dudley is going to be there, and so will a couple more people I know.  I can, for instance, get more emerald trapiche and cat’s eye (why nobody has bought any cat’s eye is beyond me as that stuff is ultra rare – and, yes, expensive).   Also, my friend Jochen is coming, and so I will have an opportunity to learn more about the current gemstone situation in Tanzania and Mozambique. 

Comparing Color Change Sapphires

For those of you who are fans of no heat sapphire and ruby, mainly from Sri Lanka but also Africa, please let me know ahead of time if you’d like anything in particular. I can also get heated ones.  I may find some new spinel from Vietnam and Burma and Cambodian zircon (hopefully those adorable emerald cuts I got).  Don’t hold your breath on Paraibas, I know of no vendors that carry it there unless there is some sort of freak occurrence (like my finding the Paraiba melee in Vegas at this booth where there was absolutely nothing else of interest and just buying the box on a whim before anyone else figured out it was sitting there).  My Paraiba suppliers sit in NY and they are pretty wiped out – of inventory that is.

In Springfield, I can also get a lot of weird cabs (like the purple chalcedony I had), and also bigger cab material.  I don’t normally look for that stuff but I can get it.  And beads.  So keep that in mind as you browse my shop (or other shops).

There will be no other shows for me this year - the next will be Tucson again in February. 

P.S. Before I go to Springfield, I’ll be having my annual summer sale.  My projected date for that is 7/19, with 15% off the store for 2 weeks.  There will be no second 20% gem sale this year as I plan for that to be an annual event only, tied to my Tucson trip because that’s when I need to raise funds and turn over inventory the fastest, so 15% will be the largest discount offered.  

My Upcoming Las Vegas Show

Given how successful – and fun – the Tucson show was for me, I have decided to tackle the next largest U.S. gem show, the upcoming JCK and AGTA show in Las Vegas.  I’ll be there 5/27-6/2 while my dad is holding down the fort here in NJ (he’s visiting for a couple of months, and in between baking apple cakes and cheesecakes, he is enjoying learning about the jewelry and gemstone business).

The JCK show in Vegas is wholesale only and there’s a bit of a registration process, but in the end it wasn’t hard to get in since my business has grown quite a bit.  The show takes place at the Mandalay Bay Resort and is known for its opulent jewelry – I’ll try to take some photos but many sellers are very protective of their stuff.  Some jewelers consider this show to be the main jewelry event of the year.  The AGTA (American Gem Traders Association) piggybacks with its own show in the same place. 

The JCK show has hundreds of participants, and I already checked for some of my favorite dealers that are not in NY, many of which will be there. 

Here’s the show website: http://lasvegas.jckonline.com/Home/

And here’s the link for the AGTA Gem Fair, which starts a day earlier: 

http://www.agta.org/tradeshows/gemfair-las-vegas.html

Vegas Strip

Gem dealers take a long time to prepapre for these types of shows.  Dealers who don’t have show rooms or websites collect their best gems for months and display them only at these shows.  They hope to make revenue in the hundreds of thousands, since they may only do a dozen shows a year, which are intended to generate their main income.  Markups are low in this industry, but turnover and volume has to be high to justify this.  The gem trade is a very competitive business with many well kept secrets.  Who buys where and who trades with whom is something few gem dealers share.

My main goal at the show is to score some new sapphire material from Dudley B.  He is the one from whom I get all the well cut Ceylon material (no heat).  He also had some cobalt spinels, I got the demantoids from him, and a few of the Luc Yen pieces.  I am happy to take suggestions for what else I should look for.  My Mahenge and Mint Garnet source is in NY, so I won’t be going to Vegas for anything specific in that regard.

If you want me to buy something at the show, there are some things you should know.

1. For me, gem purchases have no returns (this explains why I offer you such a short return period). I can sometimes memo material but not all suppliers allow this (I can’t memo at a show).  Memo deals require a well developed relationship between buyer and seller. Terms are strict and usually short unless you are specifically borrowing to sell on someone’s behalf.

2. Desirable material moves quickly and I don’t like to aggravate the sellers I work with, so I don’t haggle or argue.  I take what I need and check out, or I browse for a day or two, then buy.  I take some photos but only for serious buyers because I run around a lot in a short period of time.  I get great prices because I am a low maintenance shopper, so I have no reason to push for further discounts.  In turn, almost none of my buyers argue with me over prices, for which I am eternally grateful.

3. Gem shopping is time consuming.  It is fun, lots of fun, but can be overwhelming too.  If you want to help me find you the right thing, tell me exactly what you want, what your budget is (a range is ok).  Cut, color, size, acceptable treatment, sample photos.  The earlier the better so I can make a list, and/or tell you if you are looking for unicorns – I am a good unicorn search predictor at this point. 

4. Most importantly, as you probably already know, the gem trade involves a great deal of trust.  My suppliers trust me to pay, pay on time, trust me not to haggle (because they usually make me their lowest offer anyway and haggling at that point is offensive), and they trust me to know my stuff or ask when I don’t.  Many of the best deals are made without any paperwork (or with paperwork coming later on).  The sellers themselves usually trade before the show and pay after the show with the money they made.  I’m not in that category because I don’t exhibit at these shows, I am considered a small buyer but a safe one.  I do have a reputation in the industry, and one I am proud of.  So I make sure not to disappoint.

By the same token, when I sell to you, I need to you be honest, direct, when I buy for you at a show you need to be quick, and when you can’t afford it, let it go.   You can’t have gems for lunch anyway and it is often hard to recover ones expense if one is in financial trouble (the longer you can wait to sell a gem the more likely it is that you can make money).  I rarely buy for myself and I pull myself together not to push you.  In fact, I am often concerned that a trigger happy buyer gets himself or herself into financial trouble, which can backfire for them and for me.  Since there are no returns for me, a return of a large purchase made on your behalf can be a setback for me and prevent me from purchasing again.  I will bend over backwards to get you the best for your money, but understand that I have to live off this trade.  :)

Tourmaline: Heated or Unheated?

It has been a while since I blogged about a particular type of gemstone, but having heard some new and interesting things about tourmaline, I thought I’d share.

As many of you have noted, a lot of gemstone prices have risen sharply in the last couple of years.  But tourmaline?  Isn’t that a common gem?  Yes, it is, but world demand for this gem has gone up, especially the bright pink variety called “rubellite,” which is very popular in China.  But green tourmaline is also popular, and prices have risen correspondingly.  For green tourmaline, I would say roughly speaking, prices have doubled in the past couple of years, and for rubellite, prices have tripled.  The indicolite variety, especially brighter colors, has nearly vanished from the market.  And brighter, less sooty green and blue-green gems, demand a premium.  Anything that is bright green – even a tiny bit neon – is super expensive. 

What about tourmaline treatments?  As most of you know, most of the rubellite variety is heated to intensify color by brightening the gem.  But the green variety is heated also.  Heat treatment cannot be done at home, it requires special equipment (a ceramic oven) and it takes a few days.  The heat is kept low, about 500-700F, and it has to be steadily increased over hours or days, with a longer cool down period at the end.  For this reason, labs have a hard time telling if a tourmaline is heated or not. High heat treatment in gems leaves traces in the crystal structure, low heat does not.  Most labs, including GIA, will not certify tourmaline as unheated, so unless you know where your gem is coming from or you own the rough, you should assume that the gem is heat treated.  Guesses can be made but that is all they are (the same is true of aquamarine, the more greenish variety is less often heated than the more intense blue but labs are unlikely to provide a certificate for an unheated aqua).  One way you can guess, by the way, is by looking at how clean the gem is.  Gem dealers who routinely heat tourmalines told me that if the gem is not squeaky clean, it can break or at least fracture during the heating process, and then it becomes worthless.  So gems with inclusions are much less likely to have been heated.

Results of heating a tourmaline vary.  I found a neat entry on PriceScope where you can see photos of the change of a pink tourmalines:

http://www.pricescope.com/forum/colored-stones/description-heat-treatment-process-nigerian-tourmaline-t158728.html

For greens, I can provide some photos below.  Below is a batch of green tourmaline from an undisclosed mine “somewhere in Africa.”  Next to it photos of some gems from the same batch after heating.  As you can tell from the photos, the gems got brighter but their color also changed.  The hues of blue are all but gone and the gems take on a grassier and warmer color.  They are also brighter.

Left: Unheated Tourmaline; Right: Heated Tourmaline

 Here's how the rough looked before cutting:

From Rough Stone to Cut Stone: Part I

The journey from rough mineral to finished faceted gem has always fascinated me.  As a relative novice in the area, there are mostly surprises, but even the more seasoned cutter or gem expert can’t always predict the outcome.  On average one loses 60-80% of the gemstone material during cutting. Sometimes more, sometimes less.  One has to decide where the cleavages are that will open up during cutting, and one has to determine where the culet and table should be located.  The properties of the gem itself usually dictate this, though opinions on how to cut often vary nevertheless.

And so, when I saw a parcel of rough Winza sapphires at the Gem and Mineral show in Edison, NJ, this month, I decided to have some fun with it.

Winza Sapphire

In this little video, you can meet Don Thomson from Quest Minerals.  Don specializes in Tanzanian goods and he is also a gem cutter.  I was fascinated by his collection of crystals and rough as you can see.

Meet Don Thompson and his collection of gems and minerals.

As you can see, I discovered the parcel of sapphires and another of rubies at the very end.  With my curiosity peaked, I first looked at some pieces with a loupe, and then recorded a little video using my newly discovered phone scope (you can buy it at safepub.com). 

Parcel of Winza rubies magnified through a phone scope.

Roberta G. a customer or mine, was with me when we played with the rough.  I first bought a nice zebra striped one – I am thinking of keeping that piece more or less as is but polishing it so you can see the stripes better.  Then I started to look at each piece with a strong flash light to see what’s inside.  Roberta recorded me as I went through the parcel piece by piece.

                             Yvonne examines a parcel of Winza sapphires for cuttable material.

Then I selected a few pieces – getting them all was going to be expensive.  Don explained to me how to cut one of them and I’m very curious about the outcome.

                           Don Thompson explains how to cut a particular piece of Winza sapphire.

Next month, I will be sending some of the pieces to India for cutting.  Others will stay here.  I may slice one, and I may just have another roughly faceted by a local friend.  Roberta wants one piece faceted as well.  We don't think that any of the material is going to come out very clean, but it will be fun to do.

I will keep you posted how the adventure ends.