Ludicrous Prices

[Rose de France]

But not quartz dyed red and labelled "ruby quartz" to confuse viewers.

True.

"Ruby Quartz" is not ruby.
"Plush Diamond Sunstone" is not diamond.
"Quartzite Jade" is not jade.

 

[TheManWithNoName]

'K2 Azurite' is not Azurite either (although they've recently changed the name to 'K2 Jasper' - even though it's not Jasper either).

It's Granite.

 

[Rose de France]

'K2 Azurite' is not Azurite either (although they've recently changed the name to 'K2 Jasper' - even though it's not Jasper either).

It's Granite.

And this is not chrysoprase:

This Australian stone is, in fact, magnesite. Huge difference because chrysoprase reaches 6.0-7.0 on the Mohs scale of hardness, and magnesite reaches only 3.5-4.5.

Tumbled lemon chrysoprase/magnesite pieces:

Tumble Polished Lemon Chrysoprase (Magnesite) LCT113

LCT113 Tumble polished Lemon Chrysoprase. (Nickeloan Magnesite) A bulk assortment. Weighs 510 grams. From Yerilla, Western Australia.

sales.gemstonegeeks.com

 

[TheManWithNoName]

And this is not chrysoprase:

View attachment 27798

This Australian stone is, in fact, magnesite. Huge difference because chrysoprase reaches 6.0-7.0 on the Mohs scale of hardness, and magnesite reaches only 3.5-4.5.

Tumbled lemon chrysoprase/magnesite pieces:

Tumble Polished Lemon Chrysoprase (Magnesite) LCT113

LCT113 Tumble polished Lemon Chrysoprase. (Nickeloan Magnesite) A bulk assortment. Weighs 510 grams. From Yerilla, Western Australia.

sales.gemstonegeeks.com

The list is endless, honestly. Some of it is down to Gemporia renaming stones - but in fairness to them, some of it is also an industry issue. for example, Dalmatian Jasper is known across the industry - but it isn't Jasper.

Don't even get me started on the scam that is 'Andesine'.

 

[Pebbles]

I always wonder who buys this imo overpriced & overhyped toot?

Oh yes, me, now I'm embarrassed but hey, may as well fess up haha. And in my defense it was during lockdown, so I'm blaming that.

I bought a "colour change" sapphire silver ring. Looked lovely on screen. When it arrived, the stones were sooo small, I'd have needed a magnifying glass to see any colour change.

Garnet 16'18 inch faceted bead necklace. Again the beads were weeny but nice colour.

Neither were exactly cheap but not worth the bother of returning them.

Years before I bought what the presenter & Steve B called blue opal. I love great opals so I was on it like a rocket online to buy this, so special variety of blue opal ring.

Only to discover by seeing it & from what I read online, that it was not a solid opal stone at all. Not even doublet or triplet sliced. It was "mosaic" I.e., snall bits of opal stuck into blue resin. I sent it straight back.

So that was me done with Gemporia jewellery. Until lockdown, ooops. Oh well, they weren't that bad & didn't cost a ridiculous amount. Having said that, they weren't exactly cheap either.

 

[user 17461]

I always wonder who buys this imo overpriced & overhyped toot?

Oh yes, me, now I'm embarrassed but hey, may as well fess up haha. And in my defense it was during lockdown, so I'm blaming that.

I bought a "colour change" sapphire silver ring. Looked lovely on screen. When it arrived, the stones were sooo small, I'd have needed a magnifying glass to see any colour change.

Garnet 16'18 inch faceted bead necklace. Again the beads were weeny but nice colour.

Neither were exactly cheap but not worth the bother of returning them.

Years before I bought what the presenter & Steve B called blue opal. I love great opals so I was on it like a rocket online to buy this, so special variety of blue opal ring.

Only to discover by seeing it & from what I read online, that it was not a solid opal stone at all. Not even doublet or triplet sliced. It was "mosaic" I.e., snall bits of opal stuck into blue resin. I sent it straight back.

So that was me done with Gemporia jewellery. Until lockdown, ooops. Oh well, they weren't that bad & didn't cost a ridiculous amount. Having said that, they weren't exactly cheap either.

If Gemporia didn't make its spurious claims to championing "natural" gems when it's wares are generally more overtreated and contain more suspicious substances than Katie Price, and everything wasn't so screamingly overpriced, it wouldn't be so bad.

All it would need to do is be more transparent with viewers about what it can source these days. And not push every price jacked piece of gold tone, filled, diffused, dyed and coated toot as "heirloom" pieces. People would buy what they actually like, and might even shop more.

But I don't think that the company can ever do that. Which is both silly and saddening, as it's an approach that will ultimately see them fold sooner rather than later as people, especially serious gem collectors, give them a massively wide berth.

Which they must be, going by Gemporia's ongoing huge cashflow woes.

 

[Pebbles]

If Gemporia didn't make its spurious claims to championing "natural" gems when it's wares are generally more overtreated and contain more suspicious substances than Katie Price, and everything wasn't so screamingly overpriced, it wouldn't be so bad.

All it would need to do is be more transparent with viewers about what it can source these days. And not push every price jacked piece of gold tone, filled, diffused, dyed and coated toot as "heirloom" pieces. People would buy what they actually like, and might even shop more.

But I don't think that the company can ever do that. Which is both silly and saddening, as it's an approach that will ultimately see them fold sooner rather than later as people, especially serious gem collectors, give them a massively wide berth.

Which they must be, going by Gemporia's ongoing huge cashflow woes.

I completely agree with you VS.

Quite a few years back now I bought a fairly large "black Ethiopian opal" cluster ring from them.

Thanks to the Internet and the then fairly recent growth of YouTube, when said opal ring arrived, I could instantly see it was dyed & had little colour play in any of the stones. The stones also looked more unevenly coloured smokey ash than darker. Obviously it was sent straight back.

At the time I put it down to an inexperienced or over enthusiastic presenter. But in my opinion, this giving stones their own names & going on, implying they're a known, sought after "gem" variety. Or being somewhat vague about stone treatments, (putting it diplomatically), has been going on there for quite a number of years.

Earlier years it may have worked very well for them. But with people able to check such nonsense out now so easily online, I think they're going to find it a much more difficult sell.

Another thing with them that I notice when flicking through is that I see something, say an enamelled egg with a nice stone inside. It looks a decent pendant to be fair. Until I work out how absolutely tiny it is. But on the big screen alone it looked fabulous. Then compare it to the presenters fingernails for size. Absolutely weeny as is the stone inside it.

 

[Rose de France]

I always wonder who buys this imo overpriced & overhyped toot?

Oh yes, me, now I'm embarrassed but hey, may as well fess up haha. And in my defense it was during lockdown, so I'm blaming that.

I bought a "colour change" sapphire silver ring. Looked lovely on screen. When it arrived, the stones were sooo small, I'd have needed a magnifying glass to see any colour change.

Garnet 16'18 inch faceted bead necklace. Again the beads were weeny but nice colour.

Neither were exactly cheap but not worth the bother of returning them.

Years before I bought what the presenter & Steve B called blue opal. I love great opals so I was on it like a rocket online to buy this, so special variety of blue opal ring.

Only to discover by seeing it & from what I read online, that it was not a solid opal stone at all. Not even doublet or triplet sliced. It was "mosaic" I.e., snall bits of opal stuck into blue resin. I sent it straight back.

So that was me done with Gemporia jewellery. Until lockdown, ooops. Oh well, they weren't that bad & didn't cost a ridiculous amount. Having said that, they weren't exactly cheap either.

I live in Poland so I watch Gemporia exclusively online.

This is why I always read the descriptions.

 

[Rose de France]

The list is endless, honestly. Some of it is down to Gemporia renaming stones - but in fairness to them, some of it is also an industry issue. for example, Dalmatian Jasper is known across the industry - but it isn't Jasper.

Don't even get me started on the scam that is 'Andesine'.

There is also "Pakistani Onyx" (trade name for banded calcite).

 

[TheManWithNoName]

All it would need to do is be more transparent with viewers about what it can source these days.

This is something else that Gemporia are dishonest about though. Steve Bennett said that as mines closed, stones were becoming harder to source - and some stones were unobtainable - so they had to 'branch out' into non-gemstone products.

But that's not completely true. Yes, SOME stones are now depleted (such as Russian Alexandrite) - but MANY are still available. I suspect what they really mean is, they can't source the stones for the price that they're prepared to pay (ie, cheap enough to mark up significantly to make a big profit on).

Take Morganite for example. After the Galileia mine closed, they started giving us crap, almost colourless, 'Morganite' (irradiated Goshenite) instead. However, there's some gorgeous UNTREATED Pink Morganite coming out of Pakistan that Gemporia do not, and have never, sold.

They make out that Lapis Lazuli is rare - and bring us crap quality dyed stuff. But there are also mines in Tajikistan, Chile, Russia, the USA - and over FOURTEEN mines in just Burma alone! Are they seriously trying to suggest that they can't get any untreated material from those locations?

They also did some scaremongering with Ametrine a few years ago, claiming that "the Bolivian government has banned the export of rough material - so it has to be cut in Bolivia" and that had driven the prices up. Gemporia have also claimed, and still continue to claim to this day, that Ametrine is a one location gemstone - which is total nonsense. Ametrine also comes out of Brazil - and, in lesser quantities, Mozambique, South Africa, India and the USA.

We were also told that American Fire Opal was no longer available and the mine had closed - but one of the presenters (possibly Alex McKay) leaked that the reason they couldn't / wouldn't get it is because the guy that they used to buy from, Chuck Newnham, had moved on form that mine. So it wasn't a case that the mine had closed or the Fire Opal was unavailable, it was simply that their 'contact' at that mine had moved on.

They keep giving us irradiated Kunzites - but there's plenty of untreated material out there from locations other than Afghanistan and Brazil.

On the rare occasion they bring us Heliodor (Golden Beryl), it's irradiated material - but there's plenty of untreated material out there.

They're even giving us irradiated SMOKEY QUARTZ! Quartz is out there in abundance. UNTREATED Smokey Quartz is out there in abundance. Quartz is the most abundant gemstone available (by far!) - and the second most abundant mineral overall (after Feldspar). If they claim they can't get that in untreated form, they're taking us all for idiots!

Gemporia always mention that "because of their contacts in the industry, they can get stones at great prices and bring those savings to us". Well, part of that is true - they have 'contacts'. I suspect that because they use those 'contacts' regularly, they get offered good prices for buying in bulk - so rather than looking elsewhere for better quality material, they just buy us cheaper, inferior quality stones from their regular 'contacts'.

Whether they pass the savings from those 'contacts' on to customers though is up for debate. Once upon a time, yes, I'd have agreed. These days, absolutely not.

 

[TheManWithNoName]

And just as I finish that post, I put on Gem Collector - and what do I see - HEATED Citrine.

HEATED Citrine is not true Citrine. It started out as Amethyst.

Heating treatment changes the colour from purple to yellow/orange.

Completely unnecessary. There is PLENTY of UNTREATED, proper, Citrine available.

 

[Rose de France]

Completely unnecessary. There is PLENTY of UNTREATED, proper, Citrine available.

Emporia Style (Hungarian-owned selly telly network) offers jewellery with Russian citrine from the Ural Mountains. They say that citrine from this location is completely natural, not enhanced.

 

[user 17461]

This is something else that Gemporia are dishonest about though. Steve Bennett said that as mines closed, stones were becoming harder to source - and some stones were unobtainable - so they had to 'branch out' into non-gemstone products.

But that's not completely true. Yes, SOME stones are now depleted (such as Russian Alexandrite) - but MANY are still available. I suspect what they really mean is, they can't source the stones for the price that they're prepared to pay (ie, cheap enough to mark up significantly to make a big profit on).

Take Morganite for example. After the Galileia mine closed, they started giving us crap, almost colourless, 'Morganite' (irradiated Goshenite) instead. However, there's some gorgeous UNTREATED Pink Morganite coming out of Pakistan that Gemporia do not, and have never, sold.

They make out that Lapis Lazuli is rare - and bring us crap quality dyed stuff. But there are also mines in Tajikistan, Chile, Russia, the USA - and over FOURTEEN mines in just Burma alone! Are they seriously trying to suggest that they can't get any untreated material from those locations?

They also did some scaremongering with Ametrine a few years ago, claiming that "the Bolivian government has banned the export of rough material - so it has to be cut in Bolivia" and that had driven the prices up. Gemporia have also claimed, and still continue to claim to this day, that Ametrine is a one location gemstone - which is total nonsense. Ametrine also comes out of Brazil - and, in lesser quantities, Mozambique, South Africa, India and the USA.

We were also told that American Fire Opal was no longer available and the mine had closed - but one of the presenters (possibly Alex McKay) leaked that the reason they couldn't / wouldn't get it is because the guy that they used to buy from, Chuck Newnham, had moved on form that mine. So it wasn't a case that the mine had closed or the Fire Opal was unavailable, it was simply that their 'contact' at that mine had moved on.

They keep giving us irradiated Kunzites - but there's plenty of untreated material out there from locations other than Afghanistan and Brazil.

On the rare occasion they bring us Heliodor (Golden Beryl), it's irradiated material - but there's plenty of untreated material out there.

They're even giving us irradiated SMOKEY QUARTZ! Quartz is out there in abundance. UNTREATED Smokey Quartz is out there in abundance. Quartz is the most abundant gemstone available (by far!) - and the second most abundant mineral overall (after Feldspar). If they claim they can't get that in untreated form, they're taking us all for idiots!

Gemporia always mention that "because of their contacts in the industry, they can get stones at great prices and bring those savings to us". Well, part of that is true - they have 'contacts'. I suspect that because they use those 'contacts' regularly, they get offered good prices for buying in bulk - so rather than looking elsewhere for better quality material, they just buy us cheaper, inferior quality stones from their regular 'contacts'.

Whether they pass the savings from those 'contacts' on to customers though is up for debate. Once upon a time, yes, I'd have agreed. These days, absolutely not.

But isn't that because Gemporia wants to jack it's prices up, hence every piece of jewellery now allegedly being of "heirloom" quality?

If Gemporia didn't try to insist that every piece of heavily treated gemstone was of museum-level quality, and as rare as hens' teeth, then it could be more transparent about what it's able to source in today's gem markets in order to minimise costs.

But the fact that Gemporia is now apparently focused primarily on stiffing viewers with both its pricing and the quality of its wares means that it's not going to stop with the overblown waffle, the ruses, the obfuscation, and the lying. Whether by omission, or by swamping viewers with half-truths or outright porkies.

Either way, if you just want decent jewellery at a competitive price, or you're an experienced collector looking for unusual and natural gems, Gemporia is now definitely not the place to go to.

 

[TheManWithNoName]

Emporia Style (Hungarian-owned selly telly network) offers jewellery with Russian citrine from the Ural Mountains. They say that citrine from this location is completely natural, not enhanced.

Exactly. I've just done a quick look online - and there are 5 mines alone in Russia that are producing Citrine.

I counted over 70 worldwide - and there were still more to go when I stopped counting.

It's nonsense for them to suggest that they can only bring us Heat-treated Citrine (that was actually Amethyst............)

 

[TheManWithNoName]

But isn't that because Gemporia wants to jack it's prices up, hence every piece of jewellery now allegedly being of "heirloom" quality?

If Gemporia didn't try to insist that every piece of heavily treated gemstone was of museum-level quality, and as rare as hens' teeth, then it could be more transparent about what it's able to source in today's gem markets in order to minimise costs.

But the fact that Gemporia is now apparently focused primarily on stiffing viewers with both its pricing and the quality of its wares means that it's not going to stop with the overblown waffle, the ruses, the obfuscation, and the lying. Whether by omission, or by swamping viewers with half-truths or outright porkies.

Either way, if you just want decent jewellery at a competitive price, or you're an experienced collector looking for unusual and natural gems, Gemporia is now definitely not the place to go to.

Exactly!

They can bring us better quality stones, plus stones that they claim they "can't" get - they just "won't" get them, probably because it would mean they've got to buy them at a higher price if they buy it from anyone outside of their 'contacts'.

There's a huge difference between "can't" and "won't". They just tell us they "can't" though.

 

[Rose de France]

They can bring us better quality stones, plus stones that they claim they "can't" get - they just "won't" get them, probably because it would mean they've got to buy them at a higher price if they buy it from anyone outside of their 'contacts'.

They need new contacts as soon as possible.

 

[user 17461]

They need new contacts as soon as possible.

Considering how few gem qualifications the alleged gem experts appear to have, it's possible that their list of contacts is limited because they don't have a great reputation.

Becoming a repository for gem material that various markets have refused to buy probably doesn't make you appear either discerning or highly educated. And I would imagine that appearance is everything in the jewellery business

 

[TheManWithNoName]

Considering how few gem qualifications the alleged gem experts appear to have, it's possible that their list of contacts is limited because they don't have a great reputation.

The three amigos have the same Gem qualifications as you and I - zilch. Nothing.

I suspect that most of the contacts that they do have were contacts that Steve Bennett passed on to Jake (and subsequently, Troth and Toby).

It's interesting that a lot of Steve's old contacts no longer get mentioned - the likes of the Saul's, Chuck Newnham, Murat Akgun, Alaeddine Rafei, Russell Twyford, etc - even the visits from Glenn Lehrer and Yianni Melas seem to be noticeably reduced these days.

I suspect that those people don't have the same rapport with the current three amigos that they had with Steve. Steve used to appear in VT's being very friendly with miners, visiting mines and speaking to the mine owners on camera, taking part in digging, sorting through stones, etc. Steve seemed to have a bond with those people.

I can't imagine Jake being that way inclined - he doesn't seem to have the charisma, and he also comes across as a bit of a 'bean counter' that knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

Troth also lacks any kind of personality, and I'd imagine trying to strike a friendship or rapport with him would be 'challenging'.

Toby is the only one with any charm or personality - but he has his own sources in Thailand and elsewhere - so I would imagine he'd want to stay onside with those rather than 'treading on their toes' by sourcing from one of their competitors.

Add to that that we know that their financial situation is nowhere near as healthy as it used to be, I suspect that their negotiating / buying power is significantly reduced these days too - which probably explains the lack of variety in different stones these days, the increase in 'cheap' stones being put into jewellery (Agates, Onyx, Strawberry Quartz, etc) and sub-standard stones that are clearly cheaper for them to buy than better quality stones (dyed Lapis Lazuli, filled Amazonite, reconstituted Turquoise, diffused Star Sapphires, irradiated Goshenite, bleached Pearls). They used to give us all of those stones in an 'untreated' state in the past (or, in the case of Turquoise, waxed - or Star Sapphires that were just heat treated).

 

[AndyW]

I live in Poland so I watch Gemporia exclusively online.

This is why I always read the descriptions.

I don't trust myself so a while ago I brought in a tape measure from the shed. Use it all the time now to check what, say, 30mm actually looks like and measure something else in the house for comparison. It's saved me many a rash purchase.

(My best mate would say that he blames men for creating disinformation about what, say, 6" is )

 

[AndyW]

We were also told that American Fire Opal was no longer available and the mine had closed - but one of the presenters (possibly Alex McKay) leaked that the reason they couldn't / wouldn't get it is because the guy that they used to buy from, Chuck Newnham, had moved on form that mine. So it wasn't a case that the mine had closed or the Fire Opal was unavailable, it was simply that their 'contact' at that mine had moved on.

Emily did a piece to camera, showing oil drums of the rough they had in reception at Gemporia Towers!