Hunting Down A Royal Blue Sapphire: Inside The Gem Trade | In Search Of Precious Stones | Ep 3/4

[Music] i'm shazim parsha i'm a gemstone dealer and a jeweler i source gemstones from different countries for my clients recently i closed an emerald deal aided by close contact jeffrey who is based in thailand test test test yes hi can you hear me ah there we go there we go yes no i'm excited to source the royal blue sapphire from sri lanka [Music] jeremy is a friend i've known for a long while he's planning to propose to his girlfriend and wants to surprise her with a sapphire ring so i think i want to go for sapphire but she didn't actually tell me what color sapphire is a precious stone it comes in various colors but the most popular is the blue sapphire based on the samples i showed him jeremy described the shade he had in mind the one you chose is actually the brightest among whatever's here that's enough for me to start searching when i was nine years old my dad brought me and my mom to sri lanka for one of his purchasing trips that was the first time i actually got introduced to a royal blue sapphire as a young kid seeing something so blue so intense so big and so expensive really got my attention ever since then i've always been seeking the next royal blue sapphire [Music] in 2002 while in sri lanka i met munzeer munzer is the son of the broker that we used in sri lanka hi manzan how are you man [Music] okay okay same you know how it is and we really got along since day one it's very easy for me to demonstrate or to request certain color stones from him as he would understand what i was talking about how's the market in sri lanka right now are you seeing safayas and everything yeah uh supper is i'm actually looking for two to three carats of fire about maybe oval or cushion is fine but the color has to be correct right yeah so i find it very difficult with other dealers because their perception of a color may be different from what i perceive it to be munzee will know how to find the perfect one based on our requirements and i trust them to come and show me completely requirement you're asking for right let me try over here okay great you know you know the color that i'm talking about so you know i'm gonna leave it to you you know um try to help me get this stone and then when you get a stone just let me know straight away [Music] [Music] for all my blues fired i've always purchased them with moonsail along my side and i'm going to use him as well to help me source that stone that jeremy is looking for [Music] when i work with other dealers to obtain a particular stone we will usually agree on a price range before scouting for one in the market the purchase is then finalized based on the stone's quality so fires are found globally but the ones from sri lanka are amongst the most sought after sri lanka is known as the jewel island with about 25 of the total landmass thought to be filled with gemstones [Music] [Music] at the heart of the country is the city of ragnapura a sanskrit word for the city of gems known as the hub of miners traders and exporters in ratnapura most of the supplier mining is done traditionally in sri lanka it's the norm for financial to front the money to resemble a team of miners to start digging for storms roshan the financier has taken on a new location to mine for sapphires [Music] foreign foreign most of roshan's workers have more than 30 years of mining experience after months of digging roshan and his workers are about to find out if they have found [Music] the miners must first find a gem bearing gravel underground [Music] there's no guarantee the miners will find blue sapphires they are rare the team will continue to dig further foreign [Music] the digging will continue till they find gem bearing gravel some pits could go as deep as 100 meters before they find the gem gravel [Music] adidas water is pumped out as the miners continue digging up the muddy deposits are collected in an area before they are filled into smaller baskets and washed yes um today the team finds a variety of small stones such as garnets spinels and potentially a pink sapphire when the miners find the stones they must surrender them to the financiers who will take them to the market to secure a buyer [Music] constantly engages his workers to discuss the next step and keeps everyone in the loan there are times when the team does not find a single stone and then there are those where they strike it big when they find a rare blue sapphire [Music] underneath foreign [Music] foreign [Music] i'm shazim parsha i'm a gemstone dealer and a jeweler i source gemstones from across the world for my clients i deal in all kind of gemstones but more than 50 of my deals are usually on diamonds this may be because customers already have a lot of awareness and know-how and how to buy a diamond as compared to colorstone i'm meeting a new client potentially for a diamond deal [Music] well i've always loved beautiful things and all the more so for gemstones that were you know really really small objects that sparkle yet carry such a huge price tag [Music] well i got to know shazim through a friend this friend of mine got his engagement ring through shazim and he he told me that shazim is somebody who would be able to walk me through the gem purchasing process so the thing is i could choose to put my money in in wine in other things [Music] i felt a stone or rather a diamond for example could be something that i could hold on for future generations the thing is that for shazim i like that she was not over selling but more trying to educate me on the characteristics of any stone out there [Music] a week ago i met jeremy who wanted a sapphire ring to propose to his girlfriend i'm sourcing a royal blue sapphire from sri lanka to a trusted contact i'm actually looking for two to three carrots to fire the craft of cutting and polishing stones in sri lanka dates back to more than 2000 years and gems have been mined on the island for even longer the stones are mined some end up at the cutting and polishing facilities modern gem cutting craft in sri lanka began in the early 80s and while the methods used are still traditional there have been vast improvements in how the stones are cut and polished here [Music] there aren't many females working in lapidaris in sri lanka but adith has trained several female cutters and polishers mangalika has worked here for eight years [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] of lapidary services in sri lanka has improved since the 1990s in recent years the finished stones from sri lanka have been recognized internationally foreign there are now around fifteen thousand stone cutters in sri lanka [Music] mama foreign [Music] um [Music] not long ago i got a good deal for an alexandrite from indonesia the stone seemed flawless free of impurities and inclusions but my dad taught me never to fall in love with a stone at first glance and to get every stone verified [Music] as a trained gemologist i can study firestone but it will be a conflict of interest to certified gemstones that i buy and sell [Music] so i take the alexandrite to a reliable lab for it to be analyzed using special equipment [Music] singapore is home to a few of them i'm looking for mr tsung this stone i just want to check whether it's for 10 3.00 calories okay so so i will check i'll let you resolve first okay uh later we bring the report for you okay please just call me and then i'll come down straight away okay thank you okay thank you thank you fakery is common in our industry and even an eye as experienced as mine can be fooled [Music] as a gemstone dealer i work with a network of trusted contacts sri lanka my friend munzir is looking for a blue sapphire on my behalf as the capital of sri lanka colombo has many gemstone traders although the mains and gemstone markets from other towns are more famous munzeer is based here [Music] i'm in this trade for about more than 10 years now i got to know about this trade from my father he's in this state for a long period of time now [Music] my work mostly involves in supplying stone for my foreign clients so what they do is some of my clients ask for some particular stones they might send me a picture and asking for the i need the same color same shape and the same size so i have to hunt for that stone somewhere in colombo either for not getting colombo i have to run out for a bear waller so those are the my main kind of works are here [Music] 16 characters shazam actually i got to know from my father so shazeem's uncle and my father were they were both like friends so when shadeem came for us to sri lanka i got to know him whenever he come coming to sri lanka he'd rather call me actually he won a two to three karat blue sapphire cushion shaped one even though he said you don't mind oval shape as well so he said the color should be perfect [Music] when he was here last time he bought a perfect stone a perfect color so he won the same color this time it's kind of a bit difficult to find one so i have to look for it monsieur has asked his contacts to show him a two to three carat sapphire but my main request is the color i want a royal blue and that's a tough one to come by uh none of munzee's contacts seem to have won on hand [Music] i have to travel to beirut i have to look for the same stone over there is a two hour drive from colombo the town marks the first muslim settlement on the island the tamil language spoken in this coastal town has a mixture of portuguese arabic and cinela terminologies the residue of colonization and cultures of people who used to trade here in berwalla munzir has some good connections to help him hunt for my sapphire this is called gem bayerulla people around from all over the country all the gem devotions come here on wednesdays and saturdays this is the biggest gym market in sri lanka actually stones from the different mines across the country can be found in this gemstone market [Music] you can see stones from all over the world here actually not only from sri lanka people who goes to madagascar tanzania then uh colombia everywhere you can see all the stones here whatever the store you want you can get it over here foreign buyers too come to this market and it's been regarded as one of the safest open gym markets in the world i'm looking for a two and a half carats blue sapphire royal blue color for jose so i'm in a hunt of that in this market today what usually happens is a buyer like munzir will sit in a dedicated office and sellers will approach with any stones available on hand although monsieur is on the hunt for my specific sapphire he pays attention to other opportunities and sees if he comes across something attractive that he can acquire you'll never know when and who will turn up with a good piece of stone the good software depends on color clarity size the main thing is the good stuffer is color and clarity is very important get hundred percent cleanser very rare and there will be some small small site inclusion i gave moonzer a tough task to find a royal blue sapphire without inclusions inclusions in a sapphire can come in the form of tiny fractures or even other types of crystals that are trapped inside inclusions do affect the value of all gemstones the price range for a clean royal blue sapphire that i'm looking for is about 3 000 us dollars per carat actually these are not man-made stones these are come from the ground mirrors so it has to be some small slight inclusions in it so very ready to get hundred percent once so we have to avoid everything so get a good store has good contacts in the market he knows his way around and decides to go to another buyer's office nearby the word is out on the streets now he has to wait [Music] with dozens of stones coming in munzero must analyze them carefully finding the right stone is no easy task you need patience only then will the right gem appear thing is shaped shaped [Music] is that he never gives up easily and he hates waiting around he heads out to the streets to see if there are any options sometimes it's very difficult to identify a good stone and a fake stone so that's how we have to go for a genuine gem lab to get certified it's a gem or a fake one we can identify a good stone with some inclusions because man-made stone cannot add some inclusions in it so with some inclusions we can identify a good stone looks like monsieur street hunt didn't help he's aware that the stone is for a special occasion so it's important for me to get the best color it was quite stressful see i thought uh i might be get it very easily [Music] when i'm looking for a two and a half current blue surface there was about lots of people in store for me and then putting all the kind of stones some yellow surface pink surface and i was particularly looking for alpha blue sapphire this marker never get destroyed like that quality there is yours nice place so i had to go through all those process so first shop i i was looking for that i couldn't find it next shop i went uh i phoned most about 90 of the similar one but still uh i don't think shazam managed with it so i had to refuse it monsieur is back at his office and just when he's deciding if he should return another day a seller comes with a possible store finally i bought what is easy to come 100 i managed to find it it's a cushion shape two and a half carat royal blue color and i bought it as a reasonable price as well i think you will be very satisfied with it now the next step is i have to sending him to stone so i have to go through those process now remember the beautiful alexandrite i put in for testing the lab just called the chocolate uh it's ready okay let me show you the stone okay okay uh your list of stove is the synthetic alligator yeah synthetic is a man-made it's a global stone it's not naturally covered from earth yes detergent when you eat in the tide so stone is a synthetic addition line the wheat is a tree carrot and also has color change and these are all the inclusion magnification or hybrid stone is clean but they have little bit inclusions okay uh report is here and the stone is here okay reports thank you very much thank you thank you i'll see you again lovely yeah thank you see you just got the results from the lab it wasn't what i was expecting the stone is a synthetic alexandrite it's common in this industry that stones are mistaken for something else in fact queen victoria herself thought that the red crystal in the imperial crown was actually a ruby it was in fact red spinel this stone was a bit too clean for my liking so i'm not too disappointed but i'm glad this is just out of the way in a situation such as this it gets complicated because i had to send the stone back to the seller and try to claim the money back the seller might not be aware that the stone is synthetic i don't deal with synthetic stones and my advice is when in doubt always get the stone tester or seek a second opinion [Music] i'm shazim parsha the gemstone dealer and the jeweler a client jeremy wants a sapphire ring to propose to his girlfriend for shapes what are you looking at man yeah i think i like this shape but without the halo right so like it's over over sapphire i got in touch with my contact in sri lanka munzee to source for an oval-shaped sapphire and most importantly i asked for the royal blue color a rare one i must admit thing is shaped shaped up quite the hunt munzee secured the right sapphire for me i got it set into a ring based on the client's specifications i really need to thank munzee for all his work here because he was the one who went to the market and saw this beautiful stone for me so here it is let me know what you think oh the color is really bright wow oh he's really nice it's really beautiful man thanks i think the setting is fantastic because uh it really makes the stone stand out i've kept the packaging really simple um i usually give people who are really close to me or my friends that i know from before this box and uh the good thing about this box is that it has a light which means that they can propose even at night and i think this will help him plan for a good proposal in the future i think the design also suits the stone it really brings out the color of the stone and the whole focus actually goes from the supplier the ring is really beautiful it turned out even better than i imagined shazim did a really good job in the design and how it all turned out right i'm really excited to show this to my girlfriend and i'm sure she'll love [Music] it [Music] i think the study of demology is very important to the gem business it teaches you knowledge and it gives you all the information that you need to decipher what the stone is [Music] it's a stepping stone if you want to make a career in the gemstone business i'm here to meet miss tanya who runs the jewelry school in singapore hi good morning very well tazin welcome it's a pleasure to have you here back in the day when i was doing my gemology there were no schools available i had to do my tomology classes overseas i'm really excited to see what are the kinds of things that tanya teaches in this school to assemble in a very professional way so when you look at a lot of the examples here these are not the rubies and emeralds and sapphire high jewelry but they're also not the mass production and very cheap costume jewelry so it's a whole different area which is very popular right now the gemstone industry is closely tied to the jewelry industry it goes hand in hand so the study of jewelry making is crucial to the business of gemstones it's an extensive amount of tools for the fashion jewelry they have everything they need to be able to do extensive projects and use less tools i've been in the industry all my life i started in the 1980s and i learned from the gia gemological institute of america where i became an instructor with them for several years so people this industry has always been a little bit difficult to to find your way into because it's been often going from father to son and from his son to his son but there's no reason why we can't have people from other industries coming into our industry to learn more about what we do so shazim this is something that started to come about in the 1990s the digital jewelry design and it's really picked up at this stage so nowadays people can actually create something digitally and then they can put it on their websites and then they can even make sales online which a lot of people are already doing we have so many new developments in our industry i think that sometimes when people have been in the industry for so long they don't realize the changes that are happening and so this is where education is very very important um this is going to be the end product of what it is that we're working on which is a piece of metal that then you can set gemstones into and you can polish up to create a finished piece great chassis we're gonna put you in class today and see how you enjoy a class please sit comfortably over here thanks it's been a long time yeah fantastic while looking around at the premises tanya invited me to join one of her classes and allowed me to sit in and observe how she conducted a class so on the table you can see lots of beautiful gems [Music] there's a focal distance of one inch to one inch [Music] you can't distinguish a synthetic from a natural with your naked eye so you're going to have to find out a little bit more but at least here she was talking about various gemstones and sitting in and listening and observing what she was doing made me reminisce about the time when i was a student and in a joint school [Music] oh that's great dana dana's doing the color on this it's medium or dark tone it's like a medium it's a medium tone well done excellent i found out that there was so much more to jewelry than just diamonds so i wanted to learn more about all these gemstones and before this everything was just short workshops and self-taught learn researching online so i knew i definitely wanted to brush up on my skills and build a solid foundation okay and this one's open yes i hope that down the road singapore can become more of a jewelry hub and attract jewelry designers and enthusiasts from all around the world here to create a more vibrant jewelry industry despite being a tiny nation singapore's jewelry industry is estimated to be worth a whopping 3.5 billion us dollars [Music] previously i met min yang who's interested to buy a type 2a diamond as an investment for diamonds i usually source in europe and america but at this moment i'm leaning towards india i'm connecting with a friend of mine from my gem school days who is based in new delhi so how's everybody at home how's everyone good come to india travel you know go to some good places here [Music] rashad primarily works with what is known as pokey jewelry poke jewelry often uses diamonds that are cut to the rough shape of the stone as this results in no two stones being alike the demand is quite high rashad deals with rough diamonds day in day out he's the best person to source my request at this moment i need to find something and i need your help yeah instantly okay i'm looking for like a two carat the flawless has to be tied to a round diamond okay as of now i don't have a polished throne with me so what we can do maybe i know someone who has uh recommended me he has a four to five carat d flawless rough with him it's the flawless for sure have you seen have you seen the rod you've seen i i have seen that i have seen that okay and uh yeah so i think it's been almost 15 20 days back i met him so i think we can we can uh get too carried out of it hopefully awesome awesome where is this from uh this is from sierra leone only oh nice i think for cutting i have a couple of people who i really am very close with and they really do really great jobs so um i think i'll i'll set you up for the cutting i might need your help if this is the right route and then i might need you to help me go to school and get it cut yeah yeah perfect perfect perfect okay then i think that's about it i'll wait for your call sure sure i'll call you up the evening today take care take care then thank you so much i travel around the world to look for diamonds places like indonesia where i went to look for some colors white diamonds my most memorable trip has to be the one in tanzania the culture there was different the people were different and there was an excitement and a bus when i mingled with the people and i always remember those trips there are many diamond producing countries across the globe one of them is sierra leone the country is rich in diamonds with more than thirteen thousand square kilometers of diamond fields civil war raged here in the 1990s even in the war zones diamond mining went on the rebels used the gems to finance their war hence the terms blood diamonds and conflict diamonds the war ended in 2002 [Music] rashad mentioned that he saw a four to five carat rough there was a d flawless and a potential type 2a originating from sierra leone it's imperative that all my gemstones that i saws are conflict-free same goes for diamonds especially [Music] in 2003 the kimberley process was established by way of a united nations resolution this system tracks diamonds from the mine to the market and regulates the policing surrounding the export manufacture and sale of the products all the kimberley country members are not allowed to trade with non-members when i do purchase raw diamonds i have to get a kimberley certificate at source before exporting them out to wherever my port of exit is essentially obtaining a kimberley certificate means you're complying with the united nations regulation failing to do so means you're against the law hi hi how are you good yes so i got the wrap just please have a look okay so that one at least we look for that i only will feel that we get we clean up notice that in value this way [Music] you

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 375,801

Keywords: CNA, CNA Insider, Channel NewsAsia, People stories, Asian perspectives, full documentary, hosted, arts, outsourced, In Search Of Precious Stones, documentary, Asia, jewellery, jewels, gems, precious stones, jeweller, gemstone, gemology, gemologist, mines, mining, sapphire, Colombo, Sri Lanka, diamond

Id: Fs2ZGZ1tSLQ

Length: 46min 35sec (2795 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021