The House · Journal

The
Journal.

Notes on stones, on provenance, and on the language the trade uses when it would rather not be precise. Written to be useful to someone deciding how to buy.

A deep blue gemstone resting in dark mineral rock

Journal · Provenance

Why origin moves the price

A line naming a valley can be worth more than every other line on the report combined. What that line rests on, what the premium is actually buying, and where it stops being about the stone.

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Journal · Gemmology

Buying a ruby that has not been heated

Almost every ruby on the market has been heated, and there is nothing wrong with that. The premium on the few that have not is among the largest in the trade — which makes it the line most worth understanding before you are sold it.

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Journal · Provenance

What the Kimberley Process proves

A buyer is told a stone is Kimberley certified as though the sentence settles the question of how it was got. It settles one question, narrowly, and it is worth knowing which.

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Journal · Provenance

How to read a gemstone report

What a laboratory will tell you about a stone, what it will only offer as an opinion, and the two lines that move the price more than any other.

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Journal · The Trade

One of a kind, bespoke, or limited edition

Four words the jewellery trade uses almost interchangeably, and the single question that separates them — one most houses are never asked.

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Journal · Gemmology

The language of inclusions

The trade calls them flaws. Read properly, a stone's inclusions are the record of how it grew, the proof that it grew at all, and the only fingerprint it will ever have.

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