- Joined
- Sep 28, 2013
- Messages
- 2,663
Gem show
- Thread starter mochiko42
- Start date
movie zombie
Super_Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2005
- Messages
- 11,879
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2013
- Messages
- 2,663
Re: Gem show
I ended up NOT purchasing anything (ha! kind of proud of myself because I've committed to saving up for a larger OEC). I mostly went to look at the show for the colored stones, but did wander by Leibish and some other diamond booths. My report-back is therefore biased as I only saw a very small % of the show and focused mainly on colored gems.
Size of show
First of all, it's a very very large show. There are two venues:
A - the loose gems and materials are at a large exhibition center by the airport (spread out over 9 halls, each about the size of 1-2 soccer pitches [very approx guess])
B - finished jewelry at the main exhibition center in town (spread out over 17 halls).
- There were some talks but I did not attend. I believe Richard Hughes gave a seminar on sapphires on Thursday. (would have loved to go to that but Friday was the only day I could take off work to attend the show).
Yesterday I only walked about 20% of the loose gems halls, and already racked up about 6km on my step counter app on my phone. Definitely, it is very overwhelming for the beginner.
-- some stats from the brochure: 135,000+ sq.m of exhibition space. 3600+ exhibitors from 48 countries. 52,000 visitors.
Overall review/thoughts of the show:
- This is a trade-only show, but private collectors ARE allowed to participate as visitors. Entrance is free.
- I found prices for the cheaper items to be reasonable (e.g. turquoise, moonstone, aqua, beads/cabs / calibrated faceted gems) but you may be expected to buy in bulk. For retail buyers such as myself, this made it not worth it. (What am I going to do with 50 laboradorite cabs, for example?) The overall quality of these lower-end items was of the kind you would find at souvenir shops or street markets and was priced accordingly. This made up a large part of the show. You could see baskets and baskets of gems just piled up like fruit at the store!
- For the middle of the market (e.g. average quality sapphires, tourmalines, spinels, etc) the overall quality was acceptable at best. I guess that for me, I prefer precision cut to native cut colored stones these days (will only make except for Paraiba-type tourmalines).
Chinese buyers are becoming more demanding and sophisticated (I overheard one lady who was haggling over the price of a sapphire with an Indian vendor; she complained "this is not a good product, look at that window!! can see my thumb through it!".. ). I don't think the prices seemed worth it to me to buy poorly cut stones. Also, because there were just so MANY of them, it really hit home how the market supply of native cut or mediocre colored/hue stones is not as scarce as it is sometimes portrayed and that although the end buyer sees it as a luxury, at the show, the gems felt like a commodity (I felt like this was true at the show for gemstones and also for the seemingly endless displays of diamonds from Antwerp and Israel). H&A diamonds everywhere..nothing very exciting. (For me I was specifically looking for OECs or vintage cuts, obviously Hong Kong is not the place for this.)
- For the higher end, this was where I think it would be worth spending more time and you may get a good deal (or find some treasures, even if not cheap). I passed by Yavorskyy, Paul Wild, Nomads, and Leibish to look at their display cabinets. I was a little shy since I'm a beginner to gemstones so I didn't ask about any specific stones or pricing (esp. since I'm not a trade buyer and didn't intend to buy any high end items). They had some very beautiful gems on display. If I had a large budget and were looking for a fine colored gem I would definitely consider these vendors.
Yavorskyy -- similar to his online presence. Only very carefully curated gems were on display. Spinels, tourmalines, garnets, sapphires etc. - all with great color/saturation and very good cutting...very beautiful and if I have the budget I would like to buy from them one day.
Leibish - their purple orchid diamond was not on display when I went, unfortunately!!!
but they had some very substantial pieces on display including some yellows, green, blue and pink/purple.
General notes about diamonds at the show --- Many many colorless diamonds, but also FCD had a strong showing at the fair. Yellows of course were abundant, but also green, blue, pink/purples. Some vendors had the fancies laid out in a "suite" for possible setting as necklaces etc.
General notes about Colored stones at the show --- While the traditional biggies were there (sapphire, emerald), there were several Brazilian booths with mostly Paraibas. Indians and Thai had many booths (spinel, garnet, topaz, dendritic agate, kornerupine, apatite, sphene, quartz, lapis, ..basically every colored stone under the sun..). I would say Paraiba and cuprians were relatively plentiful at the show, and of course varied in size and quality. Treatment was not consistently disclosed at the booths, I think you would need to talk to the vendor directly to ask. I also saw a lot of synthetics/heavily treated stones like mystic topaz and fake opal, reconstituted turquoise etc.
Summary: I didn't go in with the intention of buying, but a few of the Paraibas did make my heart flutter! If only I had the budget.... Pricing at wholesale level was a bit cheaper than retail / US online stores in general, but not as cheap as I expected. I think the Chinese market is really pushing up all the prices.
Photos:
I only took a few photos. Not to spotlight any particular stone or vendor, but just to capture the feel of the average type of product on offer. You can tell I zoomed in on the Paraibas and cuprians...but honestly, there were a lot of Paraibas at the show!! Made this gal so happy just to window shop and see so many Paraibas all together 
I ended up NOT purchasing anything (ha! kind of proud of myself because I've committed to saving up for a larger OEC). I mostly went to look at the show for the colored stones, but did wander by Leibish and some other diamond booths. My report-back is therefore biased as I only saw a very small % of the show and focused mainly on colored gems.
Size of show
First of all, it's a very very large show. There are two venues:
A - the loose gems and materials are at a large exhibition center by the airport (spread out over 9 halls, each about the size of 1-2 soccer pitches [very approx guess])
B - finished jewelry at the main exhibition center in town (spread out over 17 halls).
- There were some talks but I did not attend. I believe Richard Hughes gave a seminar on sapphires on Thursday. (would have loved to go to that but Friday was the only day I could take off work to attend the show).
Yesterday I only walked about 20% of the loose gems halls, and already racked up about 6km on my step counter app on my phone. Definitely, it is very overwhelming for the beginner.
-- some stats from the brochure: 135,000+ sq.m of exhibition space. 3600+ exhibitors from 48 countries. 52,000 visitors.
Overall review/thoughts of the show:
- This is a trade-only show, but private collectors ARE allowed to participate as visitors. Entrance is free.
- I found prices for the cheaper items to be reasonable (e.g. turquoise, moonstone, aqua, beads/cabs / calibrated faceted gems) but you may be expected to buy in bulk. For retail buyers such as myself, this made it not worth it. (What am I going to do with 50 laboradorite cabs, for example?) The overall quality of these lower-end items was of the kind you would find at souvenir shops or street markets and was priced accordingly. This made up a large part of the show. You could see baskets and baskets of gems just piled up like fruit at the store!
- For the middle of the market (e.g. average quality sapphires, tourmalines, spinels, etc) the overall quality was acceptable at best. I guess that for me, I prefer precision cut to native cut colored stones these days (will only make except for Paraiba-type tourmalines).
Chinese buyers are becoming more demanding and sophisticated (I overheard one lady who was haggling over the price of a sapphire with an Indian vendor; she complained "this is not a good product, look at that window!! can see my thumb through it!".. ). I don't think the prices seemed worth it to me to buy poorly cut stones. Also, because there were just so MANY of them, it really hit home how the market supply of native cut or mediocre colored/hue stones is not as scarce as it is sometimes portrayed and that although the end buyer sees it as a luxury, at the show, the gems felt like a commodity (I felt like this was true at the show for gemstones and also for the seemingly endless displays of diamonds from Antwerp and Israel). H&A diamonds everywhere..nothing very exciting. (For me I was specifically looking for OECs or vintage cuts, obviously Hong Kong is not the place for this.)
- For the higher end, this was where I think it would be worth spending more time and you may get a good deal (or find some treasures, even if not cheap). I passed by Yavorskyy, Paul Wild, Nomads, and Leibish to look at their display cabinets. I was a little shy since I'm a beginner to gemstones so I didn't ask about any specific stones or pricing (esp. since I'm not a trade buyer and didn't intend to buy any high end items). They had some very beautiful gems on display. If I had a large budget and were looking for a fine colored gem I would definitely consider these vendors.
Yavorskyy -- similar to his online presence. Only very carefully curated gems were on display. Spinels, tourmalines, garnets, sapphires etc. - all with great color/saturation and very good cutting...very beautiful and if I have the budget I would like to buy from them one day.
Leibish - their purple orchid diamond was not on display when I went, unfortunately!!!
but they had some very substantial pieces on display including some yellows, green, blue and pink/purple. General notes about diamonds at the show --- Many many colorless diamonds, but also FCD had a strong showing at the fair. Yellows of course were abundant, but also green, blue, pink/purples. Some vendors had the fancies laid out in a "suite" for possible setting as necklaces etc.
General notes about Colored stones at the show --- While the traditional biggies were there (sapphire, emerald), there were several Brazilian booths with mostly Paraibas. Indians and Thai had many booths (spinel, garnet, topaz, dendritic agate, kornerupine, apatite, sphene, quartz, lapis, ..basically every colored stone under the sun..). I would say Paraiba and cuprians were relatively plentiful at the show, and of course varied in size and quality. Treatment was not consistently disclosed at the booths, I think you would need to talk to the vendor directly to ask. I also saw a lot of synthetics/heavily treated stones like mystic topaz and fake opal, reconstituted turquoise etc.
Summary: I didn't go in with the intention of buying, but a few of the Paraibas did make my heart flutter! If only I had the budget.... Pricing at wholesale level was a bit cheaper than retail / US online stores in general, but not as cheap as I expected. I think the Chinese market is really pushing up all the prices.
Photos:
I only took a few photos. Not to spotlight any particular stone or vendor, but just to capture the feel of the average type of product on offer. You can tell I zoomed in on the Paraibas and cuprians...but honestly, there were a lot of Paraibas at the show!!
Made this gal so happy just to window shop and see so many Paraibas all together 
Starzin
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2011
- Messages
- 1,850
Re: Gem show
Eeeek! Lookit the cobalt spinel!!!
Mochiko thank you soooo much for a fabulous report on your visit! I can imagine that this is totally overwhelming after a couple of hours - I simply wouldn't know where to look first.
Your photos certainly captured the idea of what you saw for us. I'm sorry you couldn't find anything to buy but pleased the money for your OEC project is safe
Thank you once again for taking the time to write it all up!
Eeeek! Lookit the cobalt spinel!!!
Mochiko thank you soooo much for a fabulous report on your visit! I can imagine that this is totally overwhelming after a couple of hours - I simply wouldn't know where to look first.
Your photos certainly captured the idea of what you saw for us. I'm sorry you couldn't find anything to buy but pleased the money for your OEC project is safe
Thank you once again for taking the time to write it all up!
- Joined
- May 11, 2012
- Messages
- 9,798
Re: Gem show
Wow, those pics are amazing
I am so bummed we all got sick and couldn't go.... Would you mind contacting me via my LT listing? I want to pick your brains about a setting I have that needs filling
http://loupetroop.com/listings/loose-stones-diamond/gorgeous-99-k-vs1-august-vintage-cushion-diamond
Thanks
Wow, those pics are amazing
I am so bummed we all got sick and couldn't go.... Would you mind contacting me via my LT listing? I want to pick your brains about a setting I have that needs filling
http://loupetroop.com/listings/loose-stones-diamond/gorgeous-99-k-vs1-august-vintage-cushion-diamond
Thanks
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2013
- Messages
- 12,839
Re: Gem show
I went to my first jewellery show in HK last year in November, and thoroughly enjoyed my experience. It was open to the public and I did buy a few items, including a 10-30x loupe with normal and UV lights.
The September show is apparently the biggest in the year, and I am tempted to attend. However, it would mean going to HK in September when it is a lot hotter than end of November.
May be one day.
DK
I went to my first jewellery show in HK last year in November, and thoroughly enjoyed my experience. It was open to the public and I did buy a few items, including a 10-30x loupe with normal and UV lights.
The September show is apparently the biggest in the year, and I am tempted to attend. However, it would mean going to HK in September when it is a lot hotter than end of November.
May be one day.
DK
Art Nouveau
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2004
- Messages
- 678
Re: Gem show
Thank you for posting pictures from the HK jewelry show. The cobalt blue spinel in the 4th picture is striking. The color caught my eye immediately. Do you remember the vendor and did you happen to ask the price? I have been to HK several times the last few years, but was never there when the gem show was on.
Thank you for posting pictures from the HK jewelry show. The cobalt blue spinel in the 4th picture is striking. The color caught my eye immediately. Do you remember the vendor and did you happen to ask the price? I have been to HK several times the last few years, but was never there when the gem show was on.
misskittycat
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2012
- Messages
- 1,068
Re: Gem show
I agree - I was on the hunt for a 7mm pink sapphire for a friend and I really struggled. We have found better options from Pricescope vendors online at far better prices!
mochiko42|1411102516|3753563 said:I'm here I'm here! Lots of everything, quite overwhelming.
I agree - I was on the hunt for a 7mm pink sapphire for a friend and I really struggled. We have found better options from Pricescope vendors online at far better prices!
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2004
- Messages
- 38,363
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2007
- Messages
- 26,492
300x240.png)