Thank you for your continued support. I feel like when we get to see stones in person, they speak for themselves. The problem is getting enough people to see them in person in the first place. If we do our jobs right, more people will get that chance.

@@GemologyforSchmucks You're welcome. I agree, and that's why I try to wear example stones whenever possible. "ooh, that's pretty! What is it?" Gives me a chance to showcase the stone, and explain why they should consider buying 1 or 2.

It is indeed. The deeper brown/reds look a lil' musty for me, but that could be prejudice speaking.

#yes Thank you Heidi. It's a stone I really neeeeed to make a better stock of myself. I sold a piece and put it in the mail and my soul was like: "But what??? why is it leaving???!" Glad you enjoyed~

Definitely a captivating stone ~

do you have a video of that?

Splendid to hear Derrick ~ See you around, and may my videos be of service to you.

My pleasure to serve, Ingeborg ~ I cant get enough of it XD

My pleasure ~ glad to be of service.

hah! Glorious. I appreciate all the attention #desperate XD Glad you are enjoying my content, Nikhil.

I will try ~ It is difficult to get many pictures of many excellent stones. The truly rare are covetously guarded ^_^

Thanks Roger. On your stone, typically with garnet identification, we base the determination on a combination of the RI with the colour and observable spectra. If your stone is brown orange, the first thing i'd reach for would be a spectroscope. If I saw a spessartite spectrum (often you'll also see the almandine/rhodolite spectrum too) then we just call it spessartite out of hand. There is too much inter-growth of the garnet cousins to split hairs more than that.

@@GemologyforSchmucks - thanks Peter. It weighs in at 21 grams so I don’t know really how to tell as it’s chunky. The guy said it was Painite, I said no it’s not it’s Garnet, so I bought it for £12 anyway just because it looks pretty. I’ll e-mail you a photograph of it Peter. Thanks, Rog.

I'm honoured that you make an exception for my content!~

@@GemologyforSchmucks that made me laugh. Thanks.

Let's chat about it~

There are a few - have you seen the most recent one from a few months back? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/g8CYhd2By5eWp5s.html

HAH~ Glad you enjoyed it also. One of the things I value about this channel is that my jokes get to live on for as long as people enjoy my content. A joke I told last year may serve to bring you joy today, and that kindles a fire in my heart. Cheers Trevor

I am glad you enjoyed this video ~ I hope to come to Sri Lanka when the world calms down and borders open up again.

@@GemologyforSchmucks Ohh That will be great.. Hope I will get to meet you on your visit to Srilanka.. Have to learn many things from you..❤😇

Aw thanks~ and yes, 2nd hand books are excellent. I like to support authors, but sometimes it's better value to find books that have been orphaned.

As do I. Didn't even know I was obsessed with orange before spessartite. Turns out it was latent XD

wowzas ~ i'd love to see that spessartite. The value of stones is an amazing topic to think about. The value of a name is another ;)

@@GemologyforSchmucks So true! Love your channel, BTW. :-)

On a street in Chantaburi? I kid, I kid. Sometimes miracles do happen eh?

@@GemologyforSchmucks no in scrap yard in a box a loose stone without a ring or pendant. I guess someone accidentally threw some house rubbish away.

@@user-bo9rp4ht5r the scandal ~ ah whell. As they say: one's trash is another's treasure. Never quite so true, it seems.

@@GemologyforSchmucks will upload the gem video soon

Glad it has been helpful for you. As to having reports made for them etc, that depends on your goal. If you're looking to sell them, 3rd party identification of gemstones often gives people a lot more confidence to buy. If you're not looking to sell them in the short term, I don't think it's necessary by any means. I don't get reports on all of the stones I collect as long as I am confident of their identity and treatment status. If my clients require additional documentation, it's straightforward to get the lab report that they prefer. The big question in your case is how certain are you that they are spessartite as opposed to hessonite garnet? Both can look similarly, but hessonite is quite a bit more common and generally a lower price point. Someone who can use a gem spectroscope competently should be able to tell you quickly.

This is a perfect example of how arcane the gem trade can be. Something that a gemologist or minerologist may just call: cryptocrystalline quartz can have a few dozen names (jasper, agate, chalcedony, onyx, gem silica, aquaprase.......) depending on the colour, transparency and certain patterning etc. Its both a pain and a genuine delight depending on whether or not you've had coffee yet that day and or are in an artistic mood XD. Price is also a weird thing, because just as with any other trade, there is a pipeline of how products are curated and transported to final consumers. Most end customers have no idea what a top quality stone is, so there is often a need for someone to be inbetween a miner and the end customer to pick and choose from the hypercommon rubbish to find those genuinely special pieces. To me... thats a value added service, and deserves the price of the service. Hopefully my channel will serve to educate consumers so that they can recognize the special, beautiful and rare on their own and they can get the best value for their gems. Another fun factoid for the linguists in the room ~ many of the names that we use for gemstones come from ancient languages. Even in a language like Chinese, which imports foreign words very poorly, so they mostly translate concepts rather than using a loan word, the word for "emerald" is a loan word from one of the old Afghan words for emerald (aka Old Persian) in Pashtu emerald is Zumurud and Mandarin 祖母绿 zǔ mǔ lù. What a wild wild world we live in~!

@@GemologyforSchmucks I felt it was a bit dishonest. Esp a reputable Co. It stained their reputation in my eyes. The metaphysics ppl are Constantly making up new names for common minerals to turn a extra $. Misrepresenting Sims as newly discovered minerals. 🤪😆 If a pc of rose quartz makes someone feel better( mentally), helps gets their life together etc? I'm all for it. Those silly agate lovers. Gotta love em. They ve got more names for agates/ jaspers. Turkey tail peacock, bumble bee, grape agate..... ROTF. Its marketing. I get it. The GIA has gotten in to it to some extent. I don't think thats their job. For few extra $, they'll put "pigeons blood" on a report. Leave that to the dealers/ jewelers. The ancients loved gemstones. I've been researching biblical gemstones. Supposedly David had 12 diff color garnets on his shield, for 12 tribes. Theres no clear records of color or what they were. If at all. Theres a guy in Tx who has a really neat cut. It has star of David in the cullet. I've made/ sold several pcs. Another friend has awesome mineral collection. He mines Benitoite in CA W Schrimp. Check him out. "Padparadscha" I understand from Bhagavad Gita loosely translates to the pink of lotus & sun rise on Bengali(??) bay. Any records have long been destroyed. Vera Wangs line looks very similar to ancient Egyptian pcs at Smithsonian. Right down to her signature sapphire under the setting. I wish I was a bit younger. There's so much to learn. Geology, mineralogy, history.

@@roberttyrrell2250 So much to learn indeed~ and thats why I chose to get into this world - I like me some knowledge.

Mandarin garnets (spessartite) has a distinctive spectrum when viewed with a spectroscope.

I welcome everyone to go for the stones they find most beautiful and fitting.

Spessartine, 10,000%, on both questions. When you see literal kilos of blue topaz, it's easy to grow to hate it. I choose to invest in stones that I know to be rare in the market, which is why I collect certain varieties and qualities of spessartine.

It doesn't matter what the price is from wholesale to retail price! A gem is a gem 💎 and MANDARIN ORANGE GARNET IS ONE OF A KIND! ITS WORTH A VERY FINE PRICE TAG! DON'T ASK DUMB ASS QUESTION'S AND DUMB DOWN THE VALUES OF THE GARNET GEM! PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE THE ONE'S THAT RUIN IT ALL FOR EVERYONE! ITS VALUE DEPENDING ON HUE AND COLOR LIGHTNESS OR DARKNESS EVEN IN A ROUGH STATE RUN'S ABOUT 365$ A CARAT.... ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE A FAMILY OF CLUSTERS OR (SLAB) CAUSE THE SLAB IT GROWS AND HAS GROWN ON IS ACTUALLY MICROSPHERES AND ITS MICROSCOPIC GARNET UNDER PRESSURE THAT IS OR WAS GROWING UPON THE ROCK AND IN THE ROCK! A STANDARD SPESSARTITE OR MANDARIN ORANGE GARNET AND ESPECIALLY IF IT HAS SOME RED IN IT QUALIFIES AND IS QUALIFIED UNDER A MUKTI COLOR AND COLOR CHANGING GEM STONE CLASS WHICH MAKES IT EVEN MORE RARE! DONT LET THESE DUMMIES TELL YOU DIFFERENT! A FINE TUNED MANDARIN ORANGE GARNET GEM THAT IS AROUND 2-3 CARATS SHOULD RUN SOMEONE ABOUT 3400$ ROUGH AND UNTOUCHED AND PULLED OF THE ROCK 🪨 JUST SITTING NATURALLY 2 CARATS SHOULD RUN SOMEONE (AND REMEMBER BASED ON THE COLORS YOU CAN GET OUT IF IT) WHICH IS SEEN WITH THE NAKED EYE SHOULD VARY FROM 800$- 1200$ A CARAT

Those are trade terms that are not really used in BKK, so I'm wondering which company is trying to spice up their marketing game. As far as I am concerned, Fanta is the only real name that commands any respect locally, and unfortunately its too often abused by sellers to mean much. I'd trust your eyes.

Congratulations on having a registered business and setting out on this adventure. Market building and client service are the responsibility of the business itself, so I wish you the best of luck as you learn how to best cultivate your clientele and serve your clients.

I've heard of spessartite from Namibia, yes, though most of the current supply is from Nigeria.

Which one? There are so many stones and so many values. Part of the difficulty of putting prices in videos is: if I put a price tag, I have to take down the video when it becomes inaccurate. If I put ideas, I can leave it forever and everyone can learn the concept if they have ears to listen. If you'd like to talk about a particular quality, i'd be happy to discuss it with you. Drop me an email if you'd like, at : thegemshepherd@gmail.com

Praise be, I am well. How are you, Sarath?

Howdy John, As stocks change wildly, so do cryptos eh? Current prices fluxuate and it goes beyond the scope of a youtube video. Ethereum isn't something I have a strong read on, so i'd have to relay you to a crypto expert, but if you'd like to talk about how much spessartite is for a given quality, I'd be happy to give you the up to date information that I have. Email me at thegemshepherd@gmail.com and we can talk about what may be a good fit for you.

​@@GemologyforSchmucks Hi, thanks for the response. I'm just browsing some of your videos for now, thinking about starting a small collection / investing. If I make it big in crypto I'll shoot you an email. Not counting my eggs before they're hatched though, just doing research. :)

@@johnsmithe4656 Prudence is respectable. Measurable goals are also worthy. If you like, shoot me an email and we can talk about where your goals might be and what it can look like. No stress or strings. thegemshepherd@gmail.com

Hallo Richard~

Thank you ~ your nation has so many wonderful gems aswell.

Right?! Its like saying you want the perfect significant other with none of that… “personality”…. Stuff.

The terms are used interchangeably in the trade and no one can seem to agree which is "correct." Especially with stones that have such a limited historical background, the answers are less cut and dry.

If you believe that they are good as you've said, then you have enough information to make your decision.