If you haven't been, you need to experience it to understand its importance to the gem industry in the US.  It is not really a show; it is a conglomeration of 100's of shows spread about the town.  There are large shows sponsored by international organizations at the convention center, but it is the outlying shows that really give this event character and power.  The dealers you find at the outlying shows are companies, miners, manufacturers, etc. from all over the world.  Many make a huge commitment of money and inventory bringing everything they have. 

As an opportunity to interact with many of the first source miners, going to this show is essential to the success of wholesale gem dealers in the US. It’s also invaluable in judging market value and gem availability.

It was a good show this year.  It was busy with crowded walkways and aisles, but this does not always mean good business. I heard many complaints that sales were down. I believe we’ve reached a bottom in the pricing. The costs of mining the gems and processing them cannot get any lower. The dealers that sold under market during the recession to create cash flow in hopes of a recovery are now out of business. The remaining folks have settled into a new business model that does not tolerate losses and they are prepared to hold inventory as long as it takes to profit. This will force the retailers to adjust their prices or tolerate lower profits. We may hover at the bottom for a while, but we should expect all colored gem prices to rise over the next few years.  Labor costs will increase as many of the gem-rich countries become more capitalistic and the unemployment rate lowers. Low price point jewelry will migrate to manufactured glasses, plastic, and metals.  The higher price point jewelry will rise further with higher cost gems and premium metals. The traditional low cost colored stone jewelry will fill the gap but at slightly higher prices than the previous decade.

Surprisingly, fine cutting quality from low-cost labor countries is still rare. We saw a significant leap in overall cutting quality about 5 years ago and expected to see this trend continue. We have not. It has stagnated at a moderate level. This is good for Optima Gem since we can still confidently put ourselves at the top of the pack in this area. I critiqued dozens of similarly priced suppliers’ quality and the best is still only meeting our precision 10% of the time. And those that have what we would call “fine cut” are many times more expensive. 

In the past, Optima Gem has always been able to buy poorly cut gems in the “big three” and recut them to maintain our “fine cut” offerings at a fair price. However, many companies have started to follow our lead and are recutting their rejects instead of selling them cheap. This may prove to be one of our biggest sourcing challenges in the next few years.