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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Gemstones and Minerals
Are Australian sapphires really worth anything?
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<blockquote data-quote="Lefty" data-source="post: 175260" data-attributes="member: 2976"><p>The Thai buyers are regularly on our central QLD field and buy our stone by the kilo. It was their standard practice to grade them and sell the finest to the world market as Thai or Ceylon stones and the seconds as Australian and I don't expect anything has changed. In the article I linked to, Jim Elliot has a bit of a spit about them and their decieptful ways.</p><p></p><p>I was looking in the window of a jewellers the other day and there were some loose sapphires - a nice green, a nice yellow and a rather overly dark blue. The yellow and the green were labeled as fine sapphires and priced accordingly. The too-dark blue was labeled "Australian sapphire" and offered at a reduced price. It's a reasonable chance that all three stones actually came from Australia but only the lesser-quality one was identified as such.</p><p></p><p>While Australia has a significant percentage of the world's best sapphire the Thais as I understand it have near total domination of the world marketing of sapphires and once they have the stone they can pretty much do what they like. </p><p></p><p>As the main historical source of the gemstone, they don't like the fact that since the 1970s, central QLD and New England together have produced more good sapphires than they ever produced in their very long history and will happily trash the reputation of others in order to preserve their own.</p><p></p><p>Shits me no end.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lefty, post: 175260, member: 2976"] The Thai buyers are regularly on our central QLD field and buy our stone by the kilo. It was their standard practice to grade them and sell the finest to the world market as Thai or Ceylon stones and the seconds as Australian and I don't expect anything has changed. In the article I linked to, Jim Elliot has a bit of a spit about them and their decieptful ways. I was looking in the window of a jewellers the other day and there were some loose sapphires - a nice green, a nice yellow and a rather overly dark blue. The yellow and the green were labeled as fine sapphires and priced accordingly. The too-dark blue was labeled "Australian sapphire" and offered at a reduced price. It's a reasonable chance that all three stones actually came from Australia but only the lesser-quality one was identified as such. While Australia has a significant percentage of the world's best sapphire the Thais as I understand it have near total domination of the world marketing of sapphires and once they have the stone they can pretty much do what they like. As the main historical source of the gemstone, they don't like the fact that since the 1970s, central QLD and New England together have produced more good sapphires than they ever produced in their very long history and will happily trash the reputation of others in order to preserve their own. Shits me no end. [/QUOTE]
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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Gemstones and Minerals
Are Australian sapphires really worth anything?
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