ICA member Benjamin "BJ” Hackman (right), of Intercolor, Inc., of New York, showing a tanzanite to a visitor at the company’s booth at the AGTA Gem Fair.






ICA member Pamella Regan-Fox (left), of Gogoanna, Sydney, Australia, speaking to a buyer at her booth at the GJX show.






At the booth of Ben Sabbagh Bros. of Brazil, from left: ICA member Clement Sabbagh; his brother Samuel; Antonio Negueruela Tremino, the ICA ambassador to Spain, and Jose Luis Lopez Rocio, also from Spain.






Richard Hughes, of Pala International, showing some of the new demantoid found in the Ukraine.

Tucson 2003 Report:

Tucson trails

Each February, ten of thousands of buyers flock toward an oasis in the deserts of Arizona to take part in what come to be referred to in the trade as the "Tucson experience.” Over an approximately two-week period, some 30 trade shows offer a widest possible variety of colored gemstones, minerals and gemstone-set jewelry, both to professionals and to the general public.
But, for most ICA members, over the past decade the Tucson experience has come to refer to essentially three colored gemstone trade shows, which are held in and immediately adjacent to the Tucson Convention Center (TCC). They are the American Gem Trade Association (AGTA) Gem Fair, the Gem and Lapidary Dealers Association (GLDA) show and the Gem and Jewelry Exchange (GJX) show.
Undoubtedly, with more than 90 ICA members exhibiting in 2003 at these three wholesale shows, it is the event with more ICA participation than at any. In addition, many other ICA members, including miners and gem cutters from Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia and Namibia meet here, with colleagues from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and of course the United States.
Tucson is also an important event to gauge the health of the colored gemstone business, and, this year in particular, with a very slow and mostly disappointing Tucson 2002 still fresh in the mind, exhibitors were wondering what would transpire.
On the fourth day of the AGTA show, Barbara Lawrence, an ICA member and the owner of Boston Gems and Findings, was decidedly upbeat. "We came to Tucson with low expectations, thinking we would have been pleased to return home with break even results,” she said. "But the business done on the first day was astounding. The four of us here wrote up sales for more than six hours straight, selling more on the first day than ever before. In the days that followed, the show calmed down but it still is much better than last year.”
That very same morning, Doug Hucker, AGTA’s executive director had announced that the show that the show had already hosted more than 8,000 buyers, surpassing the total number of visitors of the AGTA show of 2002. "This says something about the show, and about the business climate in Tucson in general,” he stated.
Lawrence attributed her company’s success not only to the increase in visitors. "In difficult times, advertising becomes more important than ever, and I am sure that this paid off for us. Also, we came here with prices that aimed to stimulate business. Combine that with buyers coming in with focused minds and long shopping lists, determined to stock up on their depleted colored gemstone inventories, and one has a very positive climate. Nobody wasted time. My buyers came, spent and went.”
Robert Ball, a retail jeweler from Canton, Ohio, said buying in Tucson this was easier than in 2002, because prices were lower. "I have been able to buy better--and more--because of the more flexible prices,” he said.
"Tanzanite, now back in consensus, is priced more attractively, and therefore is a good buy. Pearls are in over supply and prices of most species have come down significantly. That is good for us, good for the consumer, and ultimately, good for the colored stone business as we will sell more to the public.”

On the third day of the GJX show, visited on the third day of the show, the aisles were bustling. The booths of the exhibiting ICA members, among them a large contingent of opal dealers from Australia, were packed, and few of the exhibitors had any time to talk.
"It’s very busy, " said Pamella Regan-Fox, the owner of Gogoanna of Sydney, a company that sells opal, sapphire and a wide variety of opal and gemstone jewelry. "I am very pleased with this year’s show,” she said.
Clement Sabbagh, an ICA member from Brazil was equally enthusiastic. In addition to some very rare stones, such as a 13-carat intense green paraiba tourmaline, a large brazilianite and a new yellowish-green tourmaline named "Canary Tourmaline,” the company displayed almost the entire spectrum of his country’s colored gemstone range. "It’s been a much better show than last year,” Sabbagh noted. "Buyers know what they want and are ready to put out money to stock up on goods.”

At the GLDA show at the Raddison Hotel traffic also was lively, but the crowds were less dense. "With so many shows vying for the gemstone buyers’ time, people find it increasingly cumbersome to negotiate the labyrinth-like setup of this event,” a buyer complained. "They’ll seek out the German pavilion and go visit the Sri Lankan group upstairs, but try to avoid getting ‘stuck’ elsewhere in the down here.”
A dissonant note at GLDA was that the show management had barred access to representatives of Colored Stone magazine and Lapidary Journal. GLDA also had not allowed the Colored Stone Tucson Show Guide, the directory to all the Tucson gem shows, to be distributed at the show.
ICA vice president Thomas Lind, who exhibited together with a large group of ICA members in the German pavilion, said he had complained about GLDA’s boycott. "It is an unhealthy situation that should be resolved. It hurts our interests and I have made this clear to the show’s management,’ he said.

Within the triangle of the three major shows, one of most overheard question was "Did you see anything new? Is there a new product at these shows?”
There most surely was. Pala international launched a new find of demantoid garnet, sourced in Ukraine at the Kladovka mine, where a century ago Czars mined demantoid.
"It’s a new vein and it has yielded some exquisite material,’ said Richard Hughes, of Pala International California. "The rough stones yield cut pieces that range between 0.5 to one carat. Pieces that yield polished stone of a carat and a half and up are rare.”
"Typically, this demantoid displays the well-known horse tail inclusions, although many of the stones are very clean,” added Pala’s Josh Hall. "But I’ve had already quite a few clients who prefer the stones that display these horse tails. How, they said, could one see otherwise that they are real demantoids?”
Another new product, albeit of somewhat lesser significance, was exhibited at the both of Manning International. The company showed quantities of fancy colored sapphire from Barrington, in New South Wales, Australia. Mined on terraces, the alluvial material-small sized rough that will yield cut stones of an average of 10 points and below-is surprisingly clean and comes in colors ranging from blue to vivid pink.
"From samples taken from other, adjacent terraces, we already have seen many other colors such as green and purple,” said Gerry Manning, the company’s principal. "It is the precuts that will do well in the mass market, while the top-end material will be aimed at the watch industry.”


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A Cure for Corundum

Sapphire treatments were once again under the spotlight in Tucson. It was at the Arizona shows a year earlier that the the gem trade was made aware of a new heat treatment that was applied to corundum, in particular to fancy colored sapphire from Madagascar and Tanzania. And, 12 months later, it had become equivocally clear that these corundum products coming our of Thailand are treated with a new diffusion process, which under ICA’s N.E.T. disclosure code must be defined as "treated’ and be disclosed using the letter ”T.”
Participants at the GILC meeting, from left: Ted Themelis, a gemologist and colored gemstone researcher based in Bangkok; C.R. "Cap” Beesley of American Gemological Laboratories, of New York, and Don Kogen, CEO of Thaigem Global Marketing, who represented the Chantaburi Gem and Jewelry Association.
In Tucson this year, both the GILC meeting, as well as AGTA’s free seminar program was dominated by discussions and updates on the corundum treatment issue. At its full-day meeting on February 4, the GILC reviewed the issue and proposed not to prolong the dispute and try reach an agreement with the Thai gemstone community on the disclosure procedures of the corundum treatments. It is important the Thai understand that they have a beautiful product with good sales potential, provided it is sold for what it is--treated sapphire--the meeting suggested.
In a series of lectures, presentations and panel discussions that were held throughout the AGTA show under, the banner of the "Corundum Conference,” exhibitors and visitors were offered updates and reviews of the treated corundum issue. Kenneth Scarratt, director of the AGTA Gemological Testing Center (GTC,) offered a comprehensive review of the history of diffusion processes of corundum, from the mid-1970s till today.
In reaction to the tensions that had prevailed throughout the year between the American colored gemstone business community and the Thai gemstone industry, Richard Hughes, of Pala International, California, a renowned gemologist who has been outspoken about the Thai gem trade’s policies, said the dispute was not aimed at the Thai industry, but aimed at the dire need for proper disclosure practices throughout the entire pipeline of the trade.
"This issue never has been a personal one, and it never will be. Key commentators like myself and Ken Scarratt both have lived for long years in Thailand, have extensive family relations there. We love simply Thailand,” Hughes stated.

During the GILC meeting, from left: Ray Zajicek, cochairman of the ICA Industry Rules Committee, of Dallas, Texas; Sadaharu Fujita, a former ICA president who represented the Gemmological Association of All Japan, and his son Ken.
Hughes noted that the Thais had had its negative experiences with American business practices as well. "In its 7,000 years of cultivating rice, Thailand has developed hundreds different species. Then the Americans came, mapped these species genetically and consequently started patenting them. The Thai, and rightly so, looked upon this practices as bordering on the criminal, as it aimed to take away a heritage that should be theirs only,” Hughes noted. "In that light, it is understandable that the corundum issue is approached by the Thai with the same mechanism of reference. Who are we to try and influence trade practices that they regard as solely theirs? Therefore, it is very important to explain times and again, that we are not against the product, but we want it to be sold for what it is.”
After a high-level closed-door meeting that included some, if not all Thai industry representatives, AGTA, the Jewelers Vigilance Committee, the American Gem Society and Jewelers of America issued the following statement to the press:

In order to maintain the integrity of the U.S. marketplace, we urge complete, accurate and clear disclosure of the treatment to certain corundum and corundum jewelry products for sale in the United States.
  • The international scientific and gemological communities confirm the new treatment used on certain corundum is a diffusion (bulk/lattice) treatment. The additives are used to create new and alter existing colors.
  • According to the Federal Trade Commission Guides for the Jewelry Industry and industry practices, this treatment must be disclosed at point of purchase by all sellers to all buyers at all levels of the trade.
  • Due to the lack of consistency and/or uniformity coloration of some stones, re-cutting and polishing could have an impact on color, creating increased concern for the consumer in terms of care requirements.
  • Based on these concerns, buyers of corundum should consider establishing written vendor agreements stipulating a requirement for such disclosure and further requiring the right to return material if this treatment is not disclosed at the time of sale.
  • U.S. laboratories, which are engaged in research on this matter and are cooperating with the international gemological community, are committed to continue efforts to identify this treatment, support the trade and protect the consumer

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