Days 15-18 – Bangkok
Monday begins with contacting suppliers by phone and email to confirm appointments over the next few days. It’s always difficult to decide what to do for the best in these situations because it’s never certain how much time will be required with each supplier. With some you have a good idea because they keep a large range that is constantly turning over, so half a day should do it, usually with a quick return visit a few days later to tidy up any loose ends. However with some you can never tell, and this may not just apply to small operators. Knowing and visiting as many suppliers as possible is always best practice. However, every now and then you get that awful feeling that you’re sitting there selecting from the exact same parcel as on your last visit, if so you are effectively selecting from stones you’ve previously rejected. In such cases a planned long visit can turn into a very short one, there’s nothing to do but make a polite exit and try to make up for lost time elsewhere. This only happened once on this trip … I told them I felt sick and had to leave, which is not so far from the truth.
Throughout the first day I’m nervous for my wife, who has never been to Bangkok before and is out and about with our 12 & 10 year old sons trying to find interesting things to do … plus we have intermittent mobile phone contact. So my concentration is not what it should be … especially when I look out of a 35th (or whatever) floor window of a Bangkok skyscraper to see it’s thumping down with rain. Oh the pangs of guilt.
The buying plan for the Bangkok leg of this trip is to hand select stones known to be in demand during the Christmas trading period, the busiest of the year. My plan is to be careful and conservative, which is not as easy as it may seem. Beautiful gemstones are inherently intoxicating and it’s easy to convince yourself that one magnificent stone is better than ten more practical ones for the same money … occasionally yes, but more often no.
I visit a succession of suppliers and view thousands upon thousands of stones. With every stone I see I am faced with a dilemma that is a little more complicated than simply ‘which one to buy?’ The root of the dilemma is … the vast majority of gemstones are not cut for the Australian market. Most gemstones are cut to be sold already set in jewellery, not loose, and are generally cut shallow to obtain maximum spread for minimum weight. Shallow stones, of course, are inherently cheaper and the impact of the undesirable window in a shallow stone is hidden by cleaver setting design. The world market for this type of jewellery is huge, and also an attractive proposition for some Australia jewellery retailers. However if the retailer (or the customer) were to see these stones loose I guarantee they would pass them over. When purchasing a loose stone they’re looking for a well-cut stone with good colour, proportions and no unattractive inclusions … they are after all looking for something beautiful. However, this beautiful stone simply must cost more than the shallow one in the ring … there’s no way around it. The problem arises when the time comes to find a replacement stone … are they going to replace it with a comparable shallow stone or a beautiful one? Either way, they expect to be given the choice, but buying lower grade stones is actually more difficult than buying beautiful ones.
From four days of selection I have ticked nearly every item on my special orders and Christmas stock lists with a few bonus surprise stones for good measure. I am especially happy with the the quality and price of the round and princess cut Ceylon sapphires I bought.
We round off the journey with a few quiet days at the beach town of Hua Hin, south of Bangkok, my wife confiscates my laptop for good measure. It was a long, busy and enormously satisfying trip … maybe next time I’ll take son number two.