Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

Lookng to purchase rough diamonds

blue_diamonds

blue_diamonds

Rough_Rock
Joined
Nov 14, 2010
Messages
50
Good evening everyone, I'm looking to purchase some rough stones. I've checked ebay but there aren't many, if any, decent quality stones. They do not have to be large nor do they have to be perfect D-FL stones, but as long as I can get somewhere I can take it from there.
I know that price wise the spectrum is broad, but I just want to know where to get them. I'm planning a trip overseas to get some myself from other countries but until then, I'm in New York. Thank you.
 
Yes, but they'd be absurdly overpriced. I wish I could give suggestions - best I can do is, befriend a sight holder.
 
Circe|1370658658|3461317 said:
Yes, but they'd be absurdly overpriced. I wish I could give suggestions - best I can do is, befriend a sight holder.
Click to expand...


thats true... but Ive heard getting rough in any sort of quality is difficult for the average joe.
 
You can easily get low quality stuff on eBay. Even those on James Allen are typically stuff that won't be used in polished stones although they will definitely be better than the listings on ebay. If you are looking for gem quality roughs, you'll have a hard time though.
 
Thank you for the recommendations. I wish that I could befriend a sight holder, but where would I even find one? I want to start my own collection of gems, recently I've purchased a diamond for my mother. I love diamonds. Clearly I'd have to start out small for now but in time I'll get to purchase larger and better quality ones. I'm also looking to open my own jewelry business, and wouldn't mind learning how to cut on my own gems, in time ofcourse.
In either case, I'd still like to get them. Thank you for the replies thus far.
 
You need to buy diamonds that are already cut. You cannot access rough diamonds worthy of cutting. If it were easy or cheaper, we'd all be doing it. It's not realistic.
 
I'm sure that with due diligence I can find some decent quality gems. I understand my limits and I'm not looking for museum pieces or anything above 2 carats. I'm also planning a trip overseas to get some diamonds myself straight from the country. If I worded that correctly :oops:
 
blue_diamonds|1370745340|3461882 said:
I'm sure that with due diligence I can find some decent quality gems. I understand my limits and I'm not looking for museum pieces or anything above 2 carats. I'm also planning a trip overseas to get some diamonds myself straight from the country. If I worded that correctly :oops:
Click to expand...
better read up on the Kimberly act, Patriot act and import laws for rough diamonds first.
It is real easy to end up in club fed for 50 years if you don't know what your doing or who your dealing with.
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/trade_programs/diamonds/diamond_update.xml

That's if you survive the buying experience in the first place.
It is not uncommon to lure idiots to a foreign country with a lot of cash using diamonds as bait then BANG.
 
My husbands family are in the gemstone (not diamond) trade and I am wondering have you actually cut diamonds before? Most at home cutters cut gemstones not diamonds and are generally pretty ordinary at it in my humble opinion. There is a big difference between cutting gemstones and cutting something as hard as a diamond..... There is also a reason why most diamonds are cut in other countries like India, Asia and Africa, and Israel, ie the labour is cheap and they have mass facilities to do so to maximise profits. A lot of companies that own the mines also own their own cutting facilities these days as well. Unless you are a master cutter and have an immaculate eye for cutting, I am wondering how you intend to compete with that.
 
Some of these replies seem pretty judgmental. One even going as far as saying that it doesn't seem serious to them. Then why comment? I'm not an idiot, and I'm a lot more aware of the world that what you may think of me. I know what I know of myself and what I intend to do with myself way more than any of you. If this sounds confrontational then maybe it's because some people are acting like they know every little thing about the countries and this industry. It's that kind of reception that has so fewer people these days venturing into their own business. People get shut down by others who are forgetting to realize that the very same person that you shut down and called names today or choose not to take seriously could be the very same person interviewing you for a job. If this sounds like a rant then maybe go back and look over the replies, maybe it's just me, in that case, it doesn't apply to anyone.


To the others that weren't being a certain way: I have to start somewhere. I've looked for apprenticeships and have not been given one, I will continue to search for one but until then I have to get practice and insight somehow. Many people are hesitant to give someone outside of the family or family friend an opportunity to learn. It's my money that I'm spending and my life being put on the line, so why does anyone else care what I do with either? Getting experience at home and seeing what not to do is better than sitting on my hands hoping and praying for an opportunity to learn. As of late I already have a decent collection of gemstones and have been studying for the past 4 years and made some impressive strides for myself. No-one is born knowing, sometimes there are too many gem snobs that make trying to learn difficult. Aside from earning my M.B.A I'm enrolling into G.I.A to focus on gemstones. All that I asked was for information on where to possibly purchase rough stones, and in the process I'm being told that it can't happen or isn't likely to happen and how am I going to compete with this and that or that idiots are too easily tempted to run into trouble. Really? Are you speaking from what you weren't able to do, and if you couldn't do it then it can't happen for anyone? Why approach me with the assumption that your lens is the only viable lens?

To everyone else, I'm sorry for this. I know that it looks bad and that I've lost whatever little credibility that I may have had. I do apologize for ranting on this otherwise very helpful site, but I'm sure that someone else on this site has been approached by a gem snob and can relate to the frustration. Again to the moderators and users of this site and to those that were helpful, I'm sorry.
 
I am not judging you, just saying it is a highly competitive and as you are correctly pointing out yourself, a closed industry worth millions of dollars. Good on you for having a go. I hope you looked at Karl's link, that is a great place to start. You can buy rough directly from them and get lots of good advice there as well. Most people cannot buy rough directly from the mines, large mines and diamond companies have their own cutters. Most rough that is available has passed via four to six changes of hands before it gets to you. I would also like to add as Karl was pointing out to you there are numerous Nigerian scammers out there selling pretend rough that will take your money and don't care at all about how they get it. So do be careful, and goodluck.
 
The mining business is not generally well suited to retail sales. Just try and buy a piece of aluminum ore or even a piece of coal to see what I mean. Merchants do exist, and it is possible to do, but the first step is to agree to prices that real customers would consider laughable. That is to say, coal is sold by the ton as a commodity and mineral specimens of coal are sold by the piece for 50x the price. That's what greases the wheels for what is otherwise a difficult transaction. I'm in a state where mining is a big business and has a long history. People looking for samples of gold ore are willing, if not happy, to put up with the retail market and there are tourist shops selling samples to the rock collectors in all the places you would expect to find them but diamond customers are curiously different. There's an illusion that retail pricing on raw minerals should be somehow cheaper. It's so pervasive that it's become a self-fulfilling prophesy. People who could make a buck selling cutable rough at retail choose not to because there are so few buyers interested, rather like the above example of coal. The normal market is to buy it by the trainload and I wouldn't actually be very price conscious but I can't even think of where to begin to look, if I wanted to buy a sample, more or less at any price, especially if I wanted to be picky about it. The fact that there's so little supply means few customers have access to it and that drives down demand. Low demand makes suppliers even less interested in participating. Chicken? Egg?

The reason you see uncutable rough on ebay is actually the same issue. The alternative for the seller is to move them into the industrial market and sell in bulk for industrial prices. That's cheap, and there's enough money in the retail chain to justify the trouble. A stone that's worth $5 in a drill bit MIGHT bring $100 on ebay. That's a paycheck. If not, the drill bit maker can wait. It's not like they're perishable.

Where to buy a rough diamond if you're willing to pay the price? Start with a cutter that does retail business. There are several who participate in this forum and several of the mainstream dealers have relationships with them and others. If you'll pay more for it rough than he/she can get for it finished, I think your chances of finding someone interested in selling to you go up considerably.
 
By the way, the school link that Karl posted above is an entirely legit outfit. If your interest is in the commercial activity of diamond cutting, they're a terrific place to start.

http://www.diamondschool.com/

Also as mentioned above but worth reiterating, trading in rough diamonds is a regulated business and it's worth understanding the rules. A legitimate seller can arrange to be in compliance but it's a bit of a pain and it's one of the reasons they don't want to put up with one-off buyers.
 
arkieb1|1370780722|3462021 said:
I would also like to add as Karl was pointing out to you there are numerous Nigerian scammers out there selling pretend rough that will take your money and don't care at all about how they get it. So do be careful, and goodluck.
Click to expand...

After thinking about this for a bit I should have worded the warning different.
A few years back two terrorists were caught trying to sell rough in Canada it is not just Nigeria, it has happened in many countries including the US and Canada.
Even trade experts have been caught up in it, greed got the best of them.
 
Cutting gemstones other than diamond is a whole different story if you want to get into that, post in the colored stones forum for some help/ideas and for a couple thousand bucks you can get started cutting gemstones.
 
Karl_K|1370799758|3462130 said:
arkieb1|1370780722|3462021 said:
I would also like to add as Karl was pointing out to you there are numerous Nigerian scammers out there selling pretend rough that will take your money and don't care at all about how they get it. So do be careful, and goodluck.
Click to expand...

After thinking about this for a bit I should have worded the warning different.
A few years back two terrorists were caught trying to sell rough in Canada it is not just Nigeria, it has happened in many countries including the US and Canada.
Even trade experts have been caught up in it, greed got the best of them.
Click to expand...

I think there is all of the above, terrorists as you call them and gangs in Africa who will lure people to Africa and other countries and shoot them or smack them over the head and take their money, and these days there are about a zillion scammers selling rough that might send one piece or no pieces or a small seed parcel, and then extract large amounts of money promising untold wealth.... A number of legitimate trade sites have quite fishy descriptions selling rough so it does pay to be careful.

There is actually quite a good market for high end well cut gemstones, so thats not a bad suggestion either. I know that most of the gemstones we see that come from Asia and India tend to be relatively poorly cut, so that might be worth looking into.
 
Thank you for the understanding. I apologize again, and appreciate the help. Now that we've gotten past this hump, we can understand each other better. I'm aware of many countries selling fake stones, possibly zircon, or even killing you. Many of these countries are unstable and very dangerous. Many mines depending on what country, can be controlled by guerilla armies. Not to mention that the "police" and government don't looking too fondly on outsiders looking for their gems.
Tom Zoellner has a very good book named "The Heartless Stone" in which he details his journeys to different continents and diamond mines. I've watched Youtube videos and earned a very good grade on my 4 page position paper on whether or not diamonds are responsible for the violence of Africa. I've been to Harry Winston and got to witness the magic of a 67 carat yellow diamond.
Yes, it is true that none of this fully prepares me for a trip across the world where people are kidnapped and mutilated for possible theft. I honestly would love to get my hands on anything and cut cut cut. Amethysts to Zircon, I don't care I just have this insatiable need to learn as much as I can regardless of danger.
I have checked out the link but unfortunately they're in Florida. Over here in New York, aside from G.I.A, there's:

Christian Bauer Studios-212-643-8917
Fashion Institute of Technology-212-217-7675
Jewelry Arts Institute-212-362-8633
Studio Jewelers-212-686-1944
Craft Students League of YMCA-212-735-9731

Hopefully they'll accept transfer students.
Thank you again for the recent pieces of advice and feedback.
 
I saw these guys selling rough on ebay and thought of you. I have no idea if its cheap or not but they do seem to have good feedback & a wide range of rough stones available... & you could probably email them if you are after something specifically;

http://stores.ebay.com/QualityDiam?_trksid=p2047675.l2563
 
Thank you, they do have nice gems. I'll speak to them and get back to the thread with feedback.
 
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top