justginger
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- May 11, 2009
- Messages
- 3,712
I read a ridiculous article about it earlier today. Here are the bits I found really off. The CEO of the Natural Sapphire Company, who gave this interview, comes off looking like a giant asshat. Maybe he's angry Mark didn't buy a stone from him??
"A Burmese ruby, which this definitely looks like, can cost upwards of $100,000." Yes, it definitely looks Burmese, from that one photo you were shown, snapped with a massive zoom from hundreds of feet away.
An estimated 90 percent of the world's rubies originate in Myanmar (formerly Burma) and are known in the trade as "blood rubies." They've been embargoed in the U.S. since 2008. Arnstein points out that if Chan's ring is a Burmese ruby, the stone would have to have been in the country before the embargo. "I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that this is a Burmese ruby and it's from a small jeweler and [the jeweler] broke the law," says Arnstein. "[Zuckerberg] potentially didn't know, but this is probably a smuggled stone. He'd need proper documentation which I'm pretty darn sure he's not going to have."
You. are. kidding. me. He thinks that just because this guy slouches around in jeans and hoodies that he's going to simply stroll into some no-name mom and pop jewelry shop, who happens to be smuggling embargoed jewels, and spend up to ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS (by his own estimates) on an uncertified, undocumented stone. I understand that Joe Average does it all the time, on purchases of $2000, $5000, $10,000. But a billionaire choosing NOT to go to a known, reputable jeweler for a purchase this large? I can't imagine it happens often...and certainly not often enough to bet dollars to donuts!


"A Burmese ruby, which this definitely looks like, can cost upwards of $100,000." Yes, it definitely looks Burmese, from that one photo you were shown, snapped with a massive zoom from hundreds of feet away.
An estimated 90 percent of the world's rubies originate in Myanmar (formerly Burma) and are known in the trade as "blood rubies." They've been embargoed in the U.S. since 2008. Arnstein points out that if Chan's ring is a Burmese ruby, the stone would have to have been in the country before the embargo. "I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that this is a Burmese ruby and it's from a small jeweler and [the jeweler] broke the law," says Arnstein. "[Zuckerberg] potentially didn't know, but this is probably a smuggled stone. He'd need proper documentation which I'm pretty darn sure he's not going to have."
You. are. kidding. me. He thinks that just because this guy slouches around in jeans and hoodies that he's going to simply stroll into some no-name mom and pop jewelry shop, who happens to be smuggling embargoed jewels, and spend up to ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS (by his own estimates) on an uncertified, undocumented stone. I understand that Joe Average does it all the time, on purchases of $2000, $5000, $10,000. But a billionaire choosing NOT to go to a known, reputable jeweler for a purchase this large? I can't imagine it happens often...and certainly not often enough to bet dollars to donuts!