tara3056
Shiny_Rock
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2012
- Messages
- 334
There may also be some confusion as some of us are speaking in carats and some in grams. 1 gram = 5 carats. Gene mentioned he thought the parcel might have been 300 carats - which would be roughly $333/carat (rough). Roger mentioned that $300 per gram is no longer remotely feasible -- but $300/gram = $60/carat (rough), and it makes sense that you can no longer find good rough for that price. (Hehe, at $60/carat for the good stuff, my husband would be buying allllll day long!)
Regardless, the general theme is that rough is getting very expensive. I'll tell you what's been a little surprising to my husband and me: with the caveat of me saying *so far* and *for him*, there seems to be little opportunity for a new precision cutter in the US to make any money off of the craft. (Gene and Roger, much respect to you guys, and I know you guys have better ways of getting rough than we do!) What I mean is, as a new cutter, he is more interested in 'cherry-picking' individual pieces of rough than in buying a huge parcel of all 1 type of gem and in varying qualities. Instead, he'd rather spread his money around so he can cut a variety of stones. So he's stuck paying fairly high prices for his rough (but, with that said, rough in general is plainly getting more expensive these days regardless of how one buys it). So he is finding that he can buy the rough and cut it himself, but that if he wanted to then sell the finished stone, he'd basically have to set the asking price at what he paid for the rough in order to find a buyer, thereby making nothing at all on his work.
For example, he bought some rather lovely ("top color") Loliondo spessartite rough. He's only cut 1 of them so far, but the one he cut is a really nice pure, blazing orange color, not in the least bit brownish like in some of the spess I've ordered from other places. It's beautiful, and it's precision-cut. BUT, he paid $40/carat for the rough, which with a 25% yield, means he'd need to get at least $160/carat just to break even. I think he *could* get that, but not a whole lot more. There's just too many spessartites still on the market for less. They're usually sub-par cuts (at least to me - I admit to highly preferring precision-cuts), though. So basically his new hobby has been a brilliant way for me to get the stones I desire *in a precision-cut* when I might otherwise have trouble finding such. Also, I'm pretty boring and really prefer round brilliants or square cushions, and I don't care for pears/ovals/etc. So he has the ability to cut those shapes for me even if the yield could be higher if he cut a different shape. (Of course, when he selects rough, he looks for blocky shapes that lend themselves better to rounds/cushions instead of wasting rough willy-nilly by cutting a round from something that really wants to be something else.)
It's been interesting and fun to see my hobby from his side, but we'll see where it goes and if he ever moves fwd with selling anything!
Regardless, the general theme is that rough is getting very expensive. I'll tell you what's been a little surprising to my husband and me: with the caveat of me saying *so far* and *for him*, there seems to be little opportunity for a new precision cutter in the US to make any money off of the craft. (Gene and Roger, much respect to you guys, and I know you guys have better ways of getting rough than we do!) What I mean is, as a new cutter, he is more interested in 'cherry-picking' individual pieces of rough than in buying a huge parcel of all 1 type of gem and in varying qualities. Instead, he'd rather spread his money around so he can cut a variety of stones. So he's stuck paying fairly high prices for his rough (but, with that said, rough in general is plainly getting more expensive these days regardless of how one buys it). So he is finding that he can buy the rough and cut it himself, but that if he wanted to then sell the finished stone, he'd basically have to set the asking price at what he paid for the rough in order to find a buyer, thereby making nothing at all on his work.
For example, he bought some rather lovely ("top color") Loliondo spessartite rough. He's only cut 1 of them so far, but the one he cut is a really nice pure, blazing orange color, not in the least bit brownish like in some of the spess I've ordered from other places. It's beautiful, and it's precision-cut. BUT, he paid $40/carat for the rough, which with a 25% yield, means he'd need to get at least $160/carat just to break even. I think he *could* get that, but not a whole lot more. There's just too many spessartites still on the market for less. They're usually sub-par cuts (at least to me - I admit to highly preferring precision-cuts), though. So basically his new hobby has been a brilliant way for me to get the stones I desire *in a precision-cut* when I might otherwise have trouble finding such. Also, I'm pretty boring and really prefer round brilliants or square cushions, and I don't care for pears/ovals/etc. So he has the ability to cut those shapes for me even if the yield could be higher if he cut a different shape. (Of course, when he selects rough, he looks for blocky shapes that lend themselves better to rounds/cushions instead of wasting rough willy-nilly by cutting a round from something that really wants to be something else.)
It's been interesting and fun to see my hobby from his side, but we'll see where it goes and if he ever moves fwd with selling anything!
Good thing I don't buy rough for a living!
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