Emeralds: Colombia & Beyond

oh my gosh I know exactly what that is this is maybe my favorite stone in the whole wide world we've got a beautiful emerald right here how do I know it's an emerald that color but also emerald which is in the barrel family is a type 3 gemstone gemstones are ranked type 1 type 2 type 3 and that is based on the amount of visible inclusions some garnets are type 1 I think aquamarine is type 1 another type 3 stone is rubellite but today is all about the one true love of my life emeralds and to talk about emeralds I'm going to bring in the senior buyer mr. Jay Boyle he just also happens to have a wealth of knowledge and maybe if we are all really nice to Jay he will tell a few crazy stories about his gem adventures do you know what's in these no lions and tigers and bears oh my Columbia is known throughout the business as kind of the mecca for emeralds I want you to name the three most important mines in Columbia well three most important mines has to be Muzo most valuable emeralds in the world come from Mizzou another mind that it is still important it's called claw squeeze squeeze and then savour supportive or interestingly was the first emerald mine found by the conquistadors the Spanish when they came during the age of expansion when the Europeans were going to America had been a fun time to be around to explore the world and find beautiful deposits of gemstones and just kind of this like untouched frontier there are many worldviews than some of them believe in reincarnation perhaps we were there once you know I think everyone in the gem business is a reincarnated Explorer you do you think so yeah I don't know what I know is I don't know what's here here here all right so ready bachelor number one he's tall vibrant and green okay then it all is a clue for what source that is I wasn't study there okay so guys we have three examples of rough crystals initially we see the beautiful green hue we see the hexagonal crystal structure and as we mentioned earlier emerald is a type 3 stone so we can see some visible inclusions in the business there are ways to kind of differentiate emeralds from certain mines and so tell me a little bit about this this is Muzo here okay Muzo is characterized by rich green slightly bluish green color the crystals are oftentimes squat and well shaped okay so Muzo is gonna be well shaped in that really vibrant hue and top color taco this the long thin crystal lightly blueish more blueish exactly right his shavar okay and mr. Vora mine was the first mine found by the Spaniards in about 15 38 in Colombia so the Shiv or still still producing today not as important but occasionally siob or gets new veins are found and the third one here is coast ways - Cusco has characterized coasts glaciers characterized kind of a combination of the two medium color medium fine color crystals kind of in-between interestingly all three of these they're all about 10 miles apart that's not that I know it they're very very close I mean if you're up it to 5000 feet and you're flying over a mousou you can look down and see the river see the mind and then you you look out the window and there's close cuase and it's a it's a couple of miles away and over here is your so they're all kind of in this area on the eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains in Colombia you know when the Spaniards got there in the 1500s it was go to this new world bring back the riches mm-hmm look for gold they didn't even know about emeralds which is so cool yeah emeralds now supposedly there are there are records and stories that Cleopatra was a big fan of emeralds in Egypt 3,500 years ago some people think maybe it wasn't really emeralds but peridot if it was emeralds they weren't great animals they weren't his vibrant but since that time there was very little emerald found anywhere in the world but when the Spaniards were going to the Aztecs and the Incas Mexico and Peru they found tremendous answer gold and they also found a fair amount of these beautiful green emeralds Wow what is this I didn't even know what it was but they were collecting taking from the Indians bartering from the Indians wiping the Indian thoughts a terrible story then in 15 I think 38 one of the Spanish explorers found the shavar mine and once they found a mine now there were cases in cases and trunks of hundreds of pounds of crystals of gem quality emeralds and twice a year these big armadas would go and then the Spaniards heard well you know that's that's the cheval mine but there's another secret mine called Muzo that's where the best in the world come from but you can't go there because the mousou indians are fierce can't get near them so you know the Spaniards who listened we were their conquest doors we're here to conquer so on four different occasions they attacked the musso's that the Spaniards were beaten back time and time again and the and the musos are actually cannibals so they were fierce and they would captured some people and they would eat them raw I mean this is like so it was on the fifth campaign that they finally were able to conquer the mousou Indians and they did it by bringing in large attack hunting dogs and the musso's had never seen these massive seas giant dogs and they let the dogs loose during the battle in the Muzo freaked out and they overcame them and then they began to work the mousou mine and then natalie the flow of the world's finest emeralds begin just opened up to this this deluge of emeralds and they were shipping back cases and cases and cases back to Spain you know that is what's so great about the gem history it is rich alright let's unbox some more stuff we think this is a Zambian piece and that is pretty beautiful that's spectacular Zambian emeralds are typically gonna have less inclusions compared to their counterparts in Colombia Brazil Afghanistan and Ethiopia compared to all four of those other sources yes Colombia is the king in terms of value when an emerald sells for a record price at auction they're common it's always cold and because of that the world thinks I want Colombia so Colombia is like the brand the best brand for emeralds but Zambia is an important source and becoming more so because of of the highly mechanized and organized way that they're mining it and in partnership with the government the Brazilian emeralds they're a little more heavily included by Nature but they can be beautiful as well the ones from Afghanistan are smaller a little bluer and cleaner the one some Ethiopia can look a lot like a medium-range Colombian they're not quite as richly colored that's an oil does ambient emerald so emeralds in the business it is totally fine for to be treated yes well accepted totally fine you can consider all emeralds are old why do they all them because the way they're formed they have a lot of cracks and fissures and breaks that come to the surface oil from the beginning of recorded history has been used it's a type of filling and the reason they all is is to put the oil through the cracks to tend to make the cracks that kind of somewhat disappear you can think twenty to forty percent of the cracks in an emerald if it's oil properly might become merely invisible so that's the that's the reason that it's done and so this is a huge deal for us to have a emerald that has no oil and it looks fantastic exactly if I had to guess how many emeralds in the world are gem quality that would be uh noil I'd say it's less than 1/100 of 1% well that's cool I almost don't exist if you buy a fine emerald it may have a laboratory certificate it can be no oil certified no oil which is extremely rare and big big premium on it then you have insignificant oil which is exactly the same as normal it just means that maybe when it came off the cutters wheel they didn't really clean it properly so insignificant is virtually the same and then there's minor minor means it's a very clean emerald it doesn't have very many cracks that come to the surface and it almost looks exactly like it did before it was oil and then it then there's moderate which is a much bigger category then there's significant which is a huge category and the significant side there are some emeralds that come out of the ground that are so heavily flawed it's difficult to cut them or they'll just crumble and they can be oiled oil again it can be a synthetic resin and they're treated so they held together and it can improve the appearance dramatically but they can also be cut I was speaking to them real dealer friend of mine who actually wrote the book I said Ron back in 1980 when you and I started in the business how much did a three to five carat top gem quality Colombian air will go for you Ron says seven to eight thousand dollars to carry I said what is it now thirty to forty thousand now that's not an oil that is a very clean oiled miner probably minor Colombian emerald what is that same thirty or forty thousand dollars care if it's uh noil certified on oil over a hundred thousand so oiling is is a big part of emeralds you have to consider it always jewelry television is kind of the world leader in disclosing treatments and oiling emeralds is a treatment that must be disclosed it is accepted as you said by the trade because they're all oiled with except for this extreme my new sub set these are beautiful stones that was a little bit more blue than this one what kind of color do you prefer I prefer the solid green maybe with a slight bluish tint yeah and that's probably right down the middle of top Colombian color you do deeply saturated very slightly blue kind of a blend between yellow and blue but very slightly I mean this is probably my favorite emerald hue right there just think they're gorgeous let me look at that guy's is that not one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen yeah J that comes out of the ground I know comes out of the ground comes out of the ground where there's worms and dirt and and and the the the formation of emeralds is kind of a miracle because it's a combination of different types of minerals where one type of mineral gets thrust into the other type by heat and pressure and thermally with with water and it and it creates different chemicals that the emerald can form so it's a very rare rare occasion when a when a gem quality emerald is formed it is one of the most beautiful green stones in the world fascinating history so if you like what we've talked about so far about the beauty of gemstones don't forget to Like subscribe and ring that bell so you don't miss out I've heard the helicopter story yeah so you were in Colombia on a helicopter yeah it was with my first trip to Colombia and I was I was selling on air with jewelry television in very early days and I thought gee if I could go to Colombia and film the mines that'd be great for jewelry television and I could maybe sell more emeralds and they said okay we're gonna plan a trip so I had an emerald dealer I had a videographer we finally we went we were to meet way out in the countryside at a close gas station nobody around to cars come pulling up Mercedes black and windows the doors open guys get out and they got like bandoliers shotguns woozi's pistols they're heavily armed it's like a movie and I'm going oh and the the the head guy that was one of the bigger emerald dealers in Bogota at the time they could go to the mines no one else could go to the mines in those days it was very off-limits he had arranged for these people to fly us there so we drove another hour we waited another two hours he finally got in a little helicopter one of those little bubble helicopters and as I was leaving my Colombian him would be a friend that he whispers he goes Jake he pulls me back don't tell them you're not or else the implication they might throw you on a helicopter I went Wow okay you push me you kind of are you've discovered gemstone so we fly we fly 30 40 minutes we get over Muzo look down and then they said that's Missoula and that's Coast ways and we could see it and we landed on the helipad we were there for a while very interesting it was so late in the day because of all these delay when we left it was a scary ride back this is the the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains in Colombia and it's characterized by sharp mountains with valleys in between and on the flight back we're flying down a valley with sharp mountains and the clouds have now come down and they've covered the top of the mountains but as long as you can fly in the valley you can fly under the clouds we're flying and we get to the end of Valley and the helicopter hovers and stops and I'm going what's going on and you know Guillermo the big dealer talks with a pilot and he says we can't fly through the clouds we have to find another way so we're flying back and then I kept Guillermo on the shoulder I said Guillermo is this ok and you know super macho guy I mean he told me bring your family down I have an army a hundred people will protect you this is Colombia in the early 90s super macho guy I said is this ok Guillermo and he's he's got his hand like this and his knuckles are absolutely white he goes yeah it's ok no problem he was terrified which instantly I became terrified because I knew we were in big trouble now the fuel was running rolling and finally we're down one Valley and he says we're gonna try to go above the clouds so we slowly hover into the clouds and you know 200 yards up there's there's the wall of the mountain here and there and there and we hover into the clouds and I'm thinking okay we'll go above the clouds we'll be all right we get up there and with five minutes later we come back down and I thought we were going up we come back down I said what happened he because he he doesn't have his instrument reading he can't fly in the clouds by instruments he's afraid oh my gosh no now I'm terrified we go back through another another finally through this valley at the very end there's a high Valley like this and there's a highway and we were able to just fly over the highway we were 15 feet above cars and trucks in our helicopter they must have thought you know they're gonna be attacked and we came over the highway and then the valley opened up and we saw a Bogota and we made it and we landed with you know on fumes apparently because it was hardly any gasoline left I would have lost my mind that was that was one of the scarier things I've ever done I hope you don't mind telling that story was really is my heart is actually possible just tell I'm tell you what I'm gonna take a closer look yes I'm gonna say I want you all to take a closer look this is probably your first view of an unsold it is beautiful it is vibrant it is gorgeous so take a look at that one quick thing before we sign off I know you mentioned a book earlier that we actually have unset this is the Emerald book show circus actually sell it of jtv so if you are interested ron is really an expert of Colombian emeralds in the business it is the best book on emeralds in the entire world and if you're if you want more about it this is this is the Bible of what emeralds alright guys and if you want to learn more about that there are links in the comments section thank you to Jay leave Jay a emoji of Italian food in the comments ravioli purple boy okay so leave a ravioli if you can if not some spaghetti would be sufficient then we will catch you next week on unboxing here at GTV thanks everyone [Music]

Channel: JTV

Views: 16,594

Rating: 4.8536587 out of 5

Keywords: jtv, jewelry, jewelry television, gemstones, gems, gravel butter dubai, emerald, emeralds, colombia, colombian emeralds, muzo, coscuez, chivor, green gems, may birthstone, unboxing, oiling emeralds, most valuable gems, precious stones, emerald city, raw emerald, beryl, green emerald, stone, all about emeralds, educational videos, emerald mine, emerald gemstone, emerals, zambian emeralds, mining emeralds, Jay Boyle, most valuable emerald, where to find emeralds, brazilian emerald, ethiopia

Id: DyAme9UGImA

Length: 17min 40sec (1060 seconds)

Published: Tue May 05 2020