Hk show experience: recession looming or a lot of new higher quality gem mines?

[Cognition]

Been awhile since my last post....

So, I went to the hk show last week and found out that the stones being shown, on average, were better than any hk show I have been before. I thought there are two possibilities. Either weaker demand for gens or better technology (and/or) new finding bless us with better quality stones. And my worry was confirmed when I visited two dealers that I acquainted with.

The first dealer:
A dealer specialized in afgan tourmaline. He said the demand was very weak since the beginning of this year. He knew that the protest to some extend hit the demand, but he also experience the same experience in gjx (although not as bad as the hk show). He showed me a box full of 10+ct open axis blue tourmaline. He told me that five month ago he hit a jackpot parcel. Usually this kind of parcel attract many buyer that the stone had already sold before being cut.

The second dealer:
A dealer specialized in jade. We went to a dinner, and he showed me a translucent 2.1cm imperial jadeite bead!!! He has been in the business since 1989, and he never see demand for jadeite as bad as this year. He has been trying to find buyer for that amazing bead, but at the very best he got an insulting offer. He said that he did got several decent offer, but they offer cold hard cash in yuan (and the transaction has to take place inside china) which he reject due to chinese capital control

Sorry, no pics for this show. I was more interested on the stories each friendly dealers had.

Note: some dealers claimed that they still got a strong demand for their stone. Some other dealers also claimed that the chinese demand for high quality stone were stronger than ever. There might be several people try to use gemstone as a hedge for their local currency (which I think quite ****... even in china).

 

[JPie]

Thanks for sharing this. Time will tell!

 

[Anne111]

No politics here, I know, but it seems obvious that 'globalization', on which this trade depends, has lost its strongest supporter and turned into the opposite. I read a few articles in which big jewelers, pandora, bulgari, and I think it was graff, reported downturns since 2016.

Other possibility would the rise of yet undetected treatments that make all ducks look great (see the other thread).

Perhaps it's both. And yet prices for good quality are rising anyways.
Or did you feel prices got stuck in HK?

 

[qubitasaurus]

Actually the recession looming thing could be a reality. Too many Twitter posts , seriously though it is a bit worrying.

 

[Burmesedaze]

I caught up with the sapphire mine owners today, back from the HK and BKK fairs. They surprisingly saw strong demand for their bigger stones and necklaces. In fact, the very very dark blue sapphires sold for the same as the more open coloured blues. Astounding, really.

Buyers mostly in trade from India, Thailand and many China Chinese. Western buyers few. They highlighted that the China Chinese brought bags of cash after reserving the stones for a few days Don't want to speculate what that's about.

 

[qubitasaurus]

I caught up with the sapphire mine owners today, back from the HK and BKK fairs. They surprisingly saw strong demand for their bigger stones and necklaces. In fact, the very very dark blue sapphires sold for the same as the more open coloured blues. Astounding, really.

Buyers mostly in trade from India, Thailand and many China Chinese. Western buyers few. They highlighted that the China Chinese brought bags of cash after reserving the stones for a few days Don't want to speculate what that's about.

Lol so typical of china. Perfectly unassuming places would have a safe under the secretaries desk with a cash counting machine.

I'd walk in give them my receipts (as they were officially reimbursing all my travel costs) and they'd just get the cash machine out and start doling out envelopes of cash. At some stage my boss was travelling arround china with me -- he's a famous guy so he was entitled a lot of honorarium upon giving a talk -- and they'd just hand out wads of cash (like big piles). All perfectly legit -- all 100% consistent with the policy for what someone of his status was entitled. But we'd be walking arround with bags of cash essentially, due to their choice of how to execute it. My boss used to go drinking with it. You can spend a lot on top of the ritzy-st establishments in china.

We all used to walk arround carrying a lot of cash too, as they liked doing every transaction in cash and atms were sparse. Now they all pay everything with weechat pay -- and I spend half my time swearing at my weechat (I really need to get back in touch with you about the jade group once I get this current piece of work in, as my chinese is definitely not up to muster). China has changed so rapidly over the last few years.

 

[Burmesedaze]

Lol so typical of china. Perfectly unassuming places would have a safe under the secretaries desk with a cash counting machine.

I'd walk in give them my receipts (as they were officially reimbursing all my travel costs) and they'd just get the cash machine out and start doling out envelopes of cash. At some stage my boss was travelling arround china with me -- he's a famous guy so he was entitled a lot of honorarium upon giving a talk -- and they'd just hand out wads of cash (like big piles). All perfectly legit -- all 100% consistent with the policy for what someone of his status was entitled. But we'd be walking arround with bags of cash essentially, due to their choice of how to execute it. My boss used to go drinking with it. You can spend a lot on top of the ritzy-st establishments in china.

We all used to walk arround carrying a lot of cash too, as they liked doing every transaction in cash and atms were sparse. Now they all pay everything with weechat pay -- and I spend half my time swearing at my weechat (I really need to get back in touch with you about the jade group once I get this current piece of work in, as my chinese is definitely not up to muster). China has changed so rapidly over the last few years.

These mobile payments make it even more convenient than sacks of cash! Hehehe.

Methinks they are exchanging black for white through these purchases at the gem fairs coz no records, mostly.

Sure thing! Been buying quite a number and they are SO WORTH IT. Friend sent 4 or 5 to NGI in Sg to test. All A. Best of all, no setting fees to pay or settings/setter to fuss over.

 

[qubitasaurus]

These mobile payments make it even more convenient than sacks of cash! Hehehe.

Methinks they are exchanging black for white through these purchases at the gem fairs coz no records, mostly.

Sure thing! Been buying quite a number and they are SO WORTH IT. Friend sent 4 or 5 to NGI in Sg to test. All A. Best of all, no setting fees to pay or settings/setter to fuss over.

Yes I assume there are perks of putting large purchases through in cash.

Would love to join the jade hunting. Need to get rid of a looming deadline first though -- as per usuall the buisier I get the more I am here, so trying desperately to curb my outlets for procasternation till it is over.

 

[Cognition]

I caught up with the sapphire mine owners today, back from the HK and BKK fairs. They surprisingly saw strong demand for their bigger stones and necklaces. In fact, the very very dark blue sapphires sold for the same as the more open coloured blues. Astounding, really.

Buyers mostly in trade from India, Thailand and many China Chinese. Western buyers few. They highlighted that the China Chinese brought bags of cash after reserving the stones for a few days Don't want to speculate what that's about.

interesting, a different pov... I hope everything gonna be okay

does the "cash" refer to usd or cny?

 

[MakingTheGrade]

The wechat pay thing is kind of annoying at times if you’re a tourist. My parents live in china so I go back often but not often enough to have a phone there or debit account and some shops actually no longer accept cash. Mind boggling.

 

[qubitasaurus]

The wechat pay thing is kind of annoying at times if you’re a tourist. My parents live in china so I go back often but not often enough to have a phone there or debit account and some shops actually no longer accept cash. Mind boggling.

Sims have something like a 3 month lifetime if you don't use them anyway. We are permanently locked out of our chinese bank accounts because they're mobile phone authenticated, and you need to maintain a chinese number.

Honestly we got weechat pay to work on one phone, but never on the others. So I just sit there thinking 'that delicious croissant is taunting me', 'that vending machine with orange juice is taunting me' lol first world problems. You can get people to send money to your weechat account and then use it to pay for things (but this more or less ques endless swearing every single time as I try to work out how). Some shops the attendant will take physical cash from you, pocket it personally, and then pay for you with their own weechat account (although I suspect they are taking pity on the laowai with a screaming baby that is sure it wants the crossiant right right now).

 

[Lilith112]

On the flipside, once you get used to WeChat/Alipay, carrying cash to visit other countries feels like such an inconvenience lol. Suddenly, I need to keep track of things other than my phone!

 

[minousbijoux]

The technology of phones and their capabilities is so impressive - except that iphones and Siri (probably all phones for that matter) record everything you say and keep the records...

 

[voce]

I used to have WeChat, but after a period of inactivity it won't authenticate me to sign in anymore unless I get at least two WeChat friends to msg me with the same pin given to me at the same time. Honestly, I had fewer than 10 contacts on WeChat anyway, mostly family, so I said "this is ridiculous" and intend to quit WeChat forever. Seems like too much effort just to sign in!

 

[prs]

Sounds like I would be out of my depth with WeChat. Do US credit cards work over there?

 

[qubitasaurus]

Sounds like I would be out of my depth with WeChat. Do US credit cards work over there?

Increasingly many restraunts and public services take weechat only. No credit card (God knows I have bank accounts and credit cards galore from many different western countries which they don't want. We even have chinese union pay ones they don't want) no cash. It has been changing so rapidly, hard to foresee how this'll propagate or even how widespread it currently is (used to partially live in Beijing a few years ago, and this was not the case back then).

Re weechat being convenient if you live in China, and annoying to have to take cash with you overseas. I feel like you get the best of both worlds! But I have no doubt the rest of the world will catch china up one day, lol and then nobody will ever be able to pay for anything while they are traveling overseas ever again.

 

[Anne111]

LOL. I have no idea what you are talking about???? Did we change topics?