Gem Collector Prices

[TheManWithNoName]

Indicolite

Based on the colour in that photo, I'd say that one is actually an Indicolite.

Tourmaline is pleochroic though so I'd recommend taking a look at your stone in daylight and moving it around to ensure that it looks consistently blue from all angles rather than some angles showing a bottle green with secondary blues.

Indicolite should remain blue and be similar in colour to a London Blue Topaz.

 

[AndyW]

I saw them – and at £400 each, they were beyond ridiculous.

One thing that really annoys me about Gem Collector/Gemporia is their lack of detail when selling.

They also rely on generic photos rather than showing the actual stone you’ll receive - unless it’s a one-off, which is rare for them.

As always with Gem Collector/Gemporia, this lack of specifics just screams, “We want to put in as little effort as possible while charging as much as we can get away with.”

It's become sad and quite obvious now. Neither Emily nor Jim come across as real Gem enthusiasts. Sure, they have the spiel (Emily lectures with basics and Jim is just a salesman who could be selling fluffy codpieces) but, if you listen carefully, neither of them talk in depth or use language that most mineral or gem collectors do. Toby adds it sometimes when he comes on and Nick is perfect at it. Alex had it too.

On the pricing, Jim had an Ethiopian Opal hour, marketed as "clearance". ~45 items, all single item SKUs. By the end of the hour, he appeared to have sold about five of them. He really struggled to get much interaction or interest. Trouble is..

a) The price reductions from their previous auctions was, in some cases, hundreds of pounds. What does that say about how silly the prices were first time around? He had a couple of 9ct stones. The price he "cleared" them at was almost exactly the market price from other sellers.

b) Virtually none had videos on the website item page. For an opal, this is critical. Their photos are very odd and contrived. Plenty of sellers elsewhere put up real images and videos. Why can't GC do it? When Jim showed a couple that had generated interest from the photos, the actual stone in a couple of cases was nothing like the photo and, in some cases, all to the bad (badly shaped or dead spots across the face).

c) Unless it's a specimen rough, one of the value factors for an opal is largely on its face-up appeal. Jim can't have understood this. Until some people started asking to see it face-up or on the hand, he was just plonking them on the wheel for about ten seconds and quoting the price before whipping it away.

 

[TheManWithNoName]

It's become sad and quite obvious now. Neither Emily nor Jim come across as real Gem enthusiasts. Sure, they have the spiel (Emily lectures with basics and Jim is just a salesman who could be selling fluffy codpieces) but, if you listen carefully, neither of them talk in depth or use language that most mineral or gem collectors do. Toby adds it sometimes when he comes on and Nick is perfect at it. Alex had it too.

On the pricing, Jim had an Ethiopian Opal hour, marketed as "clearance". ~45 items, all single item SKUs. By the end of the hour, he appeared to have sold about five of them. He really struggled to get much interaction or interest. Trouble is..

a) The price reductions from their previous auctions was, in some cases, hundreds of pounds. What does that say about how silly the prices were first time around? He had a couple of 9ct stones. The price he "cleared" them at was almost exactly the market price from other sellers.

b) Virtually none had videos on the website item page. For an opal, this is critical. Their photos are very odd and contrived. Plenty of sellers elsewhere put up real images and videos. Why can't GC do it? When Jim showed a couple that had generated interest from the photos, the actual stone in a couple of cases was nothing like the photo and, in some cases, all to the bad (badly shaped or dead spots across the face).

c) Unless it's a specimen rough, one of the value factors for an opal is largely on its face-up appeal. Jim can't have understood this. Until some people started asking to see it face-up or on the hand, he was just plonking them on the wheel for about ten seconds and quoting the price before whipping it away.

I do think Jim has a bit of an interest in gems - he used to say on Gems TV that he'd bought pieces for himself abd he'd also got his daughter into it. He's always said he has a passion for untreated gemstones.

I think the problem with Jim is that he's been on Gems TV for so long, he's 'hardwired' in to that bipolar, manic, type of presenting. His style just doesn't work on Gem Collector.

As for Emily, she's awful. She has no knowledge whatsoever and comes out with some complete nonsense. Her constant giggling and love of her own voice is just infuriating. She got the job by default really by being in the right place at the right time (the Gem Collector assistant) after Charis Ketteridge left. It's obvious that Alex put a word in for her, and Ellis also played her part too.

She's not a TV presenter in a million years. Certainly not the calmer information type that Gem Collector needs.

I'd love to see Jeff on Gem Collector - his style of presenting would be perfect. That's not going to happen though because of his other job outside of Gemporia. I'd love Nick to make a permanent return too. In my opinion, he was the best presenter on Gem Collector.

Nick and Jeff would be perfect. They're too calm though and not hard sell enough to flog overpriced Agate's and Jasper's at £40 each........

 

[TheManWithNoName]

As for Gem Collectors opals - do you find they're nowhere near the quality that they used to?

Both the Aussie Opals and Ethiopian Opals seem to lack the various red, blue, green and orange pinfire. They all seem a bit 'flat' these days.

The body colour is more yellow or milky white too rather than being more translucent like the old Opals used to be.

Their Opals just really lack any 'wow factor' these days.

I had some gorgeous Opals from them years ago.

 

[AndyW]

As for Gem Collectors opals - do you find they're nowhere near the quality that they used to?

Yes, I do.

Their Ethiopian ones are quite flat or the colour play isn't vibrant or is limited to green and red. I did buy a ring when Gems TV first marketed what they called "Dark Opals" but it went back. Off-colour with just a flash or two of red & green - if you twisted it around a bit in the sun and squinted. I haven't even seen one in their "Bennett Vault" 18K range on Gems TV that I've thought impressive. They're just big, that's all and that's not good enough on its own, in my opinion. A couple of years ago, Alex did two shows of utterly superb examples. Large, double-sided and full of colour play with a good level of transparency. I regret not taking part now but I didn't then have the opal bug.

I quite like my opals to have a body colour. I have grey, honey and dark brown examples where the colour spectrum is full, from reds all the way to violet. I find that the background colour really enhances the eye appeal. I have some nice, totally transparent "water" or "crystal" ones too - lovely but they do need sunlight to come alive if they're cabs. Large, well-faceted crystal opals can be gorgeous though.

I've never been impressed by any of the Aussie ones I've seen on either channel. There was one, a few months back on GC, that was large-ish and semi-black but just too pricey. Much nicer ones are available online, with real photos and videos, from Aussie dealers direct and at very reasonable AUD$ prices.

 

[TheManWithNoName]

Their Ethiopian ones are quite flat or the colour play isn't vibrant or is limited to green and red. I did buy a ring when Gems TV first marketed what they called "Dark Opals" but it went back. Off-colour with just a flash or two of red & green - if you twisted it around a bit in the sun and squinted.

Yeah, this seems to be the problem with their opals. The white stones have hardly any play of colour, and those that do seem limited to just flashes of one colour - or, if you're really lucky, two. The colourless, transparent opals seem to be a thing of the past on GC now.

The opals with a yellow or darker body colour have little, if any, play of colour.

Ten-plus years ago, when I bought mine, Gem Collector's opals generally had a lot more play of colour.

I haven't even seen one in their "Bennett Vault" 18K range on Gems TV that I've thought impressive.

Don't get me started on that "Bennett Vault" BS. I don’t believe for one minute that those stones were, as the presenters claim, "part of Steve Bennett's personal collection that was securely stored in a vault in Geneva."

Considering Steve was once their main "gem hunter" and "gem expert" (Gemporia's exact words, not mine), and Jake & co. have spent years preaching about buying stones as investments, they’ve sold dyed blue chalcedony and filled rubies under this supposed "Bennett Vault" range. Are they seriously suggesting that Steve paid to securely store dyed blue chalcedony? The cost of storing those stones (along with the filled rubies) is probably more than they’re worth.

I can only assume one of two things - either they're telling us fibs (I’m sure they wouldn’t do that, it’s not like they've ever been warned by the ASA for telling porkies... ), or these so-called "gem experts" aren’t experts at all if they genuinely believe dyed chalcedony and filled rubies have any real value. I wouldn’t go out of my way to store them in an old shoebox under my bed, let alone pay for a "secure vault in Geneva."

The only stones they’ve sold recently that I felt may have genuinely come from Steve’s own collection were the Tunduru colour-change sapphires. Gemporia used to sell those years ago, but about eight years ago, they told us the mine had depleted and that they had no more material left.

Now, we’ve heard the "we’ve got no more material left" line time and time again - only for those stones to continue being sold in mass (Nilamani and Argyle Diamonds, for example, were supposedly coming to an end two years ago, yet they’re still being sold regularly now - in fact, Nilamani seems to be on daily). However, the Tunduru sapphires never did reappear - so, on that occasion, they actually seemed to be telling the truth.

They ran one or two "Bennett Vault" shows around December time featuring Tunduru colour-change sapphires, and that’s the first time I’ve seen them in about eight years. So, in this case, I do believe they may have come from Steve’s personal collection.

They're just big, that's all and that's not good enough on its own, in my opinion.

Again, this is something else I could rant about. Once upon a time, the Lorique range featured their best-quality stones. They visibly stood out by a mile as being superior.

These days, poor-quality, badly cut, and heavily included stones seem to be put into Lorique pieces simply because they’re big. I’d much rather have a tiny, extremely high-quality, well-cut stone than a massive, low-quality one set in 18k gold.

Their latest two parcels of Paraiba Tourmaline are shocking. They’ve got some from the original Paraiba mine in Brazil, but those are so heavily included that they look foggy or hazy, and they’re also poorly cut, with obvious windowing visible on screen. Meanwhile, the Mozambique material they've got is severely lacking in colour.

"Big" doesn’t equate to good (that's what my 7 ex-wives told me anyway....... )

I quite like my opals to have a body colour. I have grey, honey and dark brown examples where the colour spectrum is full, from reds all the way to violet.

I do too - just not from Gem Collector.

I have some GORGEOUS opals of a similar colour to the ones you’ve mentioned, including some very dark ‘chocolate’ opals. I got most of them from GemSelect over the years. They have great body colour and good play of colour. Unlike Gem Collector, you don’t have to sacrifice body colour to get play of colour, or vice versa. You get both.

Sadly, once again, it’s another sign of the times with Gem Collector/Gemporia - poor to average-quality stones sold at premium prices.

I've never been impressed by any of the Aussie ones I've seen on either channel. There was one, a few months back on GC, that was large-ish and semi-black but just too pricey. Much nicer ones are available online, with real photos and videos, from Aussie dealers direct and at very reasonable AUD$ prices.

I got some gorgeous Aussie semi-black opals and a ‘proper’ black opal (possibly the only one ever seen on the channel) from Gem Collector years ago - they were exceptional quality with great play of colour. You just don’t see that kind of quality on the channel now, though.

The semi-black opals I’ve seen in recent years look grey with no play of colour, and the other ‘black’ opals I’ve seen weren’t exactly black. They were more of a murky grey (at best) - and again, with little or no play of colour.