A business proposal

[nikkis34]

Afghanistan has some good tourmaline, aquamarine, and other gems. Well I know where to buy the rough gems in afghanistan, but I do not know what to look for. If someone would like to teach me what to look for as far as quality and what price I should pay for it, then I would go purchase it and then bring back and sell it to them. Off course I would buy it with my own money, so there is no risk involved for the buyer. If the buyer does not like the products, he is not obligated to purchase the rough gems. I am from Afghanistan, so the language and culture barrier is not an issue for me.

I am located in the San Francisco bay area. My e-mail [email protected]

 

[mogok]

Hello Nikkis,

Well I wish you all the best in your researches.

My $0.02 advise for you and other people having the same project would be the following:

If you want to buy rough gemstones then your customers will be gem cutters. In this case my best advise would be to learn about cutting. A good cutter can buy rough because he knows what he will be able to do with it. Now some gems before cutting need to be treated. That's a problem as you have to guess what will come (color, clarity) after the treatment. Buying rough is not an easy job... Usually the people doing that have already a lot of experience in the gemstone industry.
If you want to buy minerals, then your customers will be collectors. people with a lot of knowledge about gems and minerals. You will so have to learn about them: (mineralogy, cristallography...) to see what is currently selling and at which prices. Buy complete pieces that have good size, color, that are not broken and cheap...

Not easy at all...

Then if you want to buy gems already cut, I would advise you to take a gemology course. Studying gemology will make you familiar with all types of gems, treatments, synthetics... You will then understand better the market, do less mistakes and be able to communicate better about your gems (which means better sales...)

But the first advise should be: Buy what you can sell!

All the best,

 

[nikkis34]

So where do I meet the cutters? Afghanistan does not have cutters of it's own, so most of the what they sell is rough. Thanx for the reply mogok. You are always very informative.

 

[katbadness]

Check out:
http://www.usfacetersguild.org/

There is an old thread discussing how to find faceters close to the location of the poster.

Note a comment made by Michael E, who's a faceter himself:

----------------
On 8/5/2004 2:27:23 AM Michael_E wrote:

HI Spinel,
If you go to this site, http://www.usfacetersguild.org/ , and join the discussion group you can directly ask most of the cutters in the country if any of them are located close by and could help you. Do you have some rough to cut or do you need a repair on a stone ? If you could post a picture or describe what you need, I'm sure willing to help answer any questions that you might have.----------------

Best of luck with your venture!!

And bring back those yummy Afghani stones!

*drool*

 

[Michael_E]

nikkis34,
Sounds like an interesting venture ! Unfortunately it is almost impossible to say anything about what you should be looking for, particularly with regards to price. Here are some general guidelines as to what a cutter wants:
1. Natural, untreated material. You need to know enough and have enough equipment to be fairly sure that what you are buying is natural and untreated. This requires training and experience, although some crystals such as tourmaline and aquamarine have obvious external crystal form and other traits which make them hard to fake.
2. Good color. This is obvious, but there are some radioactive treatments that can change the color of a stone, that could be very detrimental to your health if you try carrying them around before they have cooled down.
3. Size. Bigger is better here.
4. Clarity. With any gem crystal, clarity is of huge importance. The clear portions of crystals are the omly parts of interest to a faceter. This means clear, with a loupe, in every direction in that protion of the crystal that will be cut.
5. Price. This is the toughest part as it requires a great deal of knowledge about what is selling in other parts of the world and for how much. Check out some of the websites that sell rough gems or better yet contact them and see what they have to say. They would be able to give some idea of what they would buy pieces from you for and what they would be most interested in.
Good luck and take care !

 

[valeria101]

----------------
On 8/25/2004 10:13:08 AM Furthermore wrote:


Afghanistan also produces lapis lazuli and has (rumoured) massive gold reserves.


Your head also tends to part company with your body. )) ----------------

Still got mine

It's just bad luck (?) that most gem ming is done where least would wnat to go, but Afgan gem materials find their way into Pakistan. Aside diamonds, I've seen (or at least heard) of just about everything comming from the region.

Would you spend a minute to write down a little low down of Afgan gem mining Nikkis?

 

[nikkis34]

Mining in Afghanistan is done with dynamite, drills, and anything else that would run on generators. Rubies are found around Jagdalek and Emeralds are found in the Panjsher Valley. While Tourmaline and Aquamarine around in the Nuristan. Lapis Zuli is found in Badakhshan.


The word on the street is that there is a large availability of Tourmaline, Aquamarine, Lapis Zuli . Westerners do not go to Peshawar
to purchase gems anymore because of the war and the area being Al Qaeda's vacation spot. So I am trying to take advantage of this because I think the risk is managable.

 

[sunnyalappat]

iam from india and we have lots of places where the diamonds are cut perfectly the labour is cheap at the same time at par to the industry standards and i beleive every one knows that the trade is risky but i be able to manage the risks and get it done well cut diamonds are easy to sell