| |
M & M Sapphires |
Num 4 |
| |
|
July 2009 |
Not long now, Gemfest is nearly upon us. For those of you are fortunate to be here for the show don’t forget to pop in and buy your Passport before the show and start collecting your stamps to enter the additional raffle draw for the $1,000.
We will be in our normal spot in the Hall at the show.
Tourism this year has been a bit different. We have blocks of 4-5 days of being busy then it goes quiet for the next 4-5 days. More places have opened up this season doing buckets of wash.
People don’t tell us all they find but we have cut & set some really lovely stones. Mark has been cutting a lot more this year of the regular diggers & day trippers. He has cut some lovely “finds” but very little yellow; this all proves why they are worth the money.
Early this year we purchased our new casting machine, it is a far better way of casting than the old method. It produces a product which requires less clean up time. This gives us more time on producing newer design & moulds. This year we have introduced 47 new ring designs mainly in larger stone settings however people still say “Is this all you have?”
People don’t seem to realise that is involves investing a large amount of money to have every design cast up all the time. We have been doing a cast about every 3-4 weeks to keep our orders up to date.
|
|
The State Government has promised $486,758 towards the establishment of a swimming pool complex on the Gemfields. The total project has been costed at over $1 million so some more fund raising & grant application has to be done.
Newsletter Prize:
Congratulations to Peter & Annette from Calliope Qld who are the lucky recipients of this newsletter prize.
This month’s prize winner was picked from the customer base who answered the last newsletter’s quiz question correctly.
A jewellery box is on its way to them. |
|
The winner was computer generated and the winning answer was 1988.
To be eligible for the next Prize Draw you will need to email the answer to the following question to m.m.sapphires@bigpond.com with the word newsletter in the subject line. Include your contact details and answer in the body of the text.
Competition Question: What are the names of the 4 townships that make up the Central Queensland Gemfields? (The answer is on our Web Site.)
People on our email list will be notified when the next newsletter is released & also from time to time will be offered exclusive Specials.
New Stock: We now stock Jewellery Cleaning Cloths & Hagerty’s Jewellery Cleaning solutions. We have 2 different solutions. Silver Clean for silver & silver plate. Jewel Clean for Gold, Platinum, Diamonds, Sapphires & Rubies
Tip of the month: Rough stone for sale on the field is hard to find. Unfortunately some people have been purchasing rough but not taking a good look at the rough before buying it. You have to have good light & eyes to check the stones properly.
They then bring it to us to cut & are disappointed when we tell them that the rough has flaws in it and will either not cut a stone or a smaller one that they had been told.
All rough has some flaws in them, & it is the cutter’s job to cut the best out of the rough supplied to them. However not all stones should be cut and you can’t cut more out of a stone than there is in it to start with.
Heat treating of some sapphires on the fields is done to clean them up the silk & sheen that gives them a milky look if not treated. You end up with a brighter sapphire. Not all sapphires require heat treating. Once heat treated the sapphire does not revert back to what it looked like before treatment.
It unfortunately can’t turn a bomb into a good sapphire.
DATES TO REMEMBER:
Gemfest 2009: Thursday August 6th to Sunday 9th see you there.
