Gary Roskin

On my desktop this week…
June 16, 2008

June 16, 2008

A week from now, I’ll be on a plane from Philly to JFK to catch a red-eye heading south to Sao Paulo. A couple of flights later, I’ll be in Governador Valadares, Minas Geraís covering the annual IBGM gem and mineral show for you. I’m looking forward to the trip, since so many different gem materials come from the region. I expect to see most if not all of it there at the show. In anticipation of that, I’ve just transferred 9 gigs of images from my laptop to make room for all of the images I plan to capture while I’m there. Stay tuned.

Of course, being in Brazil will give me a chance to ask the locals what they think of the multi-use “Paraiba” nomenclature here in the States, and the subsequent lawsuit brought by David Sherman, Paraiba.com,  against AGTA, GIA and others for using the place name as a color designated variety. Not that their opinion will matter to the U.S. courts, but it will certainly be at least interesting for us to note.

The Paraiba lawsuit has actually escalated in the past few weeks, with a letter from AGTA’s law firm telling Sherman’s lawyer John Hannon to dismiss the complaint or be sued. Hannon, confident his client is in the right, has written a rough draft response, expected to be finished and sent off sometime this week, that basically says Let’s take this to court and have the truth be told.  I’ve read through it, and I would suggest you all hold onto those ringside seats, because it looks like this is going to be one ugly huge knock-down drag-out fight. More on that later this week. Stay tuned.

Still wondering what’s going on with the research on andesine, or have you forgotten what andesine is? (Just a reminder for those not concerned, andesine is a reddish-orange transparent feldspar, related to sunstone and moonstone, that has been selling quite well for several years. Rumors in Tucson this year, still yet to be confirmed, is that the color is not natural, most likely heat treated, or even possibly diffusion treated. The research jury is still out.) We’re still waiting patiently as the science end of gemology, namely Dr. George Rossman at Caltech,  Dr. James Shigley at GIA, and Dr. John Emmett, at Chrystal Chemistry in Washington, try to figure this one out.

In the meantime, and possibly just a bit pre-mature, two $5 million class action lawsuits have been filed against Jewelry Television in Knoxville, Tenn., for selling what they claim to be chemically altered feldspar as natural color andesine. Of course, without any results from the West Coast – and with no disrespect intended to those who feel that they have uncovered the mystery already (for example - here) – I am not sure the courts will be able to decide one way or the other at this point.

And then there’s the news of the newly uncovered coated tanzanite.  The major gem labs are all abuzz about it, and there seems to be some kind of consensus amongst them that there should probably be… a likely possibility that there is more of this stuff out there…. But no one has seen but one small group of stones. Still, even without seeing the potentially thousands of carats of coated melee-sized tanzanite, it just reminds us that we should all be on the lookout for anything at all times. Never let down your guard!

Posted by Gary Roskin on June 16, 2008 | Comments (0)