The Gem Hunter by: Otago Documentary - Maker Craig Meade
Otago documentary-maker Craig Meade takes an insider's look at a new television series about the secretive world of precious jewel trading: I have always been fascinated by the seemingly secret world of jewels and gems. Just how do they get from some remote riverbed to jewellery store windows? I decided to investigate and realised it was a business full of tense negotiations, danger and great risk of failure. Without risk, there's often no reward, and nowhere is this more true than in the gem business.
This "buyer beware" market, where even years of knowledge and experience can fail you at a critical moment, is not for the faint hearted. But the reward is a sparkly precious jewel. In 2003, I moved to New Zealand from Sydney for work and immediately fell in love with my new home town of Otago. It 's the only place on earth I can make international television, be a part-time firefighter and a trout fisherman.
Two years after my move, I became programme developer for Natural History New Zealand (NHNZ), also based in Otago. It was there that the idea for a 14-episode television series was born. It came to fruition after a colleague and I came across a guy on YouTube named Ron LeBlanc, who calls himself "The Gem Hunter".
It took three months to hunt him down because like all good gem hunters, Ron runs deep and silent, off grid and off the radar, living quietly and dealing in some gem-rich village in a developing nation. To make the series, we teamed up with jewellery expert Diane Robinson and geologist Bernie Gaboury, who together travel through exotic destinations and unfamiliar cultures to peel back the layers of the gem industry.
The show takes in the ruby mines of Vietnam, the vibrant street markets of Madagascar - home to the largest deposit of sapphires on the planet - emeralds in Colombia, moonstones in Sri Lanka, pearls in Myanmar and topaz in Brazil. The beauty of going to the source, as Ron does, is that you know you are dealing with ethically-sourced gems. You can see the dirt the stone came from and sometimes you can even see it coming out of the ground for the first time.
You can meet the miners, ideally dealing directly with them rather than a host of “interesting" middlemen and women. If you can do that, the money goes straight into the pocket of the person who probably needs it most, and certainly deserves it most. When negotiating the price, the first rule in the Ron LeBlanc playbook is to always make the seller name their price first. The next step is to refuse to deal until they name a lower price - the amount they drop by is an indication of how badly they want to sell, and if the stone might be a clever fake or flawed. From there it's the usual back and forth - with a tonne of friendliness, humour and human kindness between. The push and pull of negotiation over a single gem can for hours.
Gems go through a bit of a process from their raw state to the jewellery counter. Generally they are traded again and again as they make their way from the source to the end user. There's a very high chance the stones are going to be cut in Thailand, no matter where they originally came from.
Then the cut stones are usually bagged up in groups of similar stones - a 500g bag of 1 carat blue sapphires for example - and then sold to a jewellery company who set the stones and sell them. That is the typical journey of generic consumer gems. The stones are usually bigger and better, and each have their own unique journey to a buyer. I learned many things during the making of this series, including what to look out for when buying gems abroad. Firstly, if you are looking for a good investment, then hire an expert. The fakes in the market are highly advanced and can fool even an expert on a good day. If you are looking at diamonds, they should be certified in terms of quality, value and origin.
The paperwork should also be forthcoming.You are simply looking for something beautiful looking for something beautiful to wear, then just buy the rock that makes your heart sing. You'll know it when you see it. Gem Hunt screens on the Travel Channel, SKY025, on Wednesdays at 8:30pm.(Read the original full article,'The Gem Hunter by: Otago Documentary-Maker Craig Meade'
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