Interesting stone from Mexico, most likely, that underwent copper diffusion that didn't work so well. Teófilo Otoni, MG. Photo by Tenney Naumer, copyright 2009.
Jewelers Ethics Association Industry News , Vol. 2, No. 4 (April 16, 2010).
Why I Am Not Going To The GIA'S Feldspar Conference
by David Federman, JEA Contributing Editor
How I would like to blame my decision not to attend the GIA's feldspar conference this weekend on financial hardship.
But that would be an excuse--not a reason.
And making excuses would be just one or two degrees shy of lying. I'm too old to lie or rationalize or give doctor's notes.
No, the reason I'm not going to the feldspar conference is that this conference is too little too late--and it will not bring the American jewelry industry any closer to clarity and closure about the scandals that have wracked the most popular feldspar of modern times: Oregon sunstone.
Just look at who are absent from the rostrum--the people who know most about this scandal as well as the people who have been most damaged by it. I'm talking about the whistle blowers like Robert James and Joel Arem; I'm talking about the Oregon sunstone miners who have lost millions of dollars due to frauds involving non-disclosure of treatment. If some of these heroes and victims are silly enough to pay money to sit impotently in the audience, this reporter can only lament their decision to waste their money on a cause whose most profound effect will be more frustration for them.
As far as I'm concerned, the conference owes these brave gemologists and defrauded miners honor and obeisance, but they will receive neither. No, the conference will be too busy debating spurious sources for andesine in Tibet and Mongolia--sources that have been thoroughly repudiated by geologists and mining authorities in China. No mention will be made of the economic and marketing necessities for an ample andesine source in "greater China" because of its not-coincidental status as an official Olympics gemstone. Will conference presenters explore Chinese andesine as possibly an elaborate science fiction?
Don't bet on it. Don't even hope for it.
We all know the facts and fictions about the andesine mess. The stuff used to fleece consumers comes from Mexico--by the ton. There is no other proven source capable of providing the material needed for fraud on the scale that we have seen it. I don't care what lab equipment says. Experts can and have been fooled, especially since they're testing material none or very little of which was bought from the TV networks and Internet sellers who engaged in feldspar fraud. It was selected at random from dealer inventories. So I have serious doubts about the relevance of the scientific testing conducted. If the wrong samples were used, the results don't prove anything. At issue here is where the tons of rip-off material needed for the con came from--not whether or not some mountain side in China may produce a couple kilos of bona fide andesine (something I highly doubt). There is only one gemologist I know of who restricted his testing to "store-bought" andesine: Robert James. Moreover, there is only one gemologist I know of who tested hundreds of samples--most of it bought at his own expense: again, Robert James. Yet James has not been invited to present at the conference. Hell, he should be its keynote speaker.
Consequently, to me, the best we can hope for from the conference is that it will be an exercise in hindsight rather than insight. Actually, I would be glad if it could achieve even that much. True hindsight in this matter would involve a thorough critique of the shabby methods used to investigate this scandal and the continuing lack of preparedness to prevent subsequent gemological frauds of similar magnitude.
The truest hindsight would lead to the following foresight: the jewelry industry is a sitting duck for repeat offenses, some of them by repeat offenders such as the shop-at-home TV networks.
So I'm staying home where I know I won't be missed and I certainly won't be missing the action. I hear the weather here on the East Coast is going to be warm and sunny--a match for that on the West Coast. So maybe some of you might want to fly out to Philadelphia and convene a post-mortem for the andesine tragedy. That post-mortem would involve the creation of a gemological civil defense plan that will show the world that the jewelry industry is finally ready to learn from history rather than to continue ignoring it.
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