Stuller's Senior Gemstone Buyer Gary Venable takes you on a buying trip to Thailand where he goes to purchase the company's
Black Box Gemstones.
Video Transcript
What does it mean to be hand selected? To me it means traveling the world in search of the perfect gemstones. It means bringing home quality and brilliance. It means putting our customers first. We start our Black Box Gemstone buying trips by sending our facility in Thailand a list of what we'll be looking to purchase during our time overseas. Combined, the Thailand team has more than 70 years of experience in gemstone cutting, polishing, and quality assurance. The office sources the stones from our list. During the trip we could see up to 8 vendors viewing more than 4,000 stones. After selecting what we would like to see, each vendor brings an assortment of stones to our office via a motorcycle carrier. All stones are displayed on a table by stone type and color. Viewing up to 500 stones from each vendor we look for that color cut, and clarity, searching for the top quality gems in batch. We look at the cut of the stone to see if it has the right height, depth, and dimension, choosing well polished gems as they are eye-catching and very sellable. After reviewing all of the stones we submit an offer for the gems will like to buy. Negotiations ensue and some stones may have to be republished or recut.
Finally the gems stands make their way 9,400 miles to our global headquarters in Lafayette, Louisiana. Once at Stuller we review each gemstone again ensuring they are of exceptional quality. We price, photograph, and post each stone to our website and continue to monitor the inventory daily adjusting where needed. I have been going on buying trips for Stuller for the last ten years, touching ground on five of the seven continents, 20 times in Thailand alone, and I still learn something new about the world of gemstones each and every time. Only the best can be called Black Box Gems.
Hand selected for their rarity and beauty, each Black Box Gemstone brings many benefits to support yourselves and build your business. Presented in a sophisticated modern black box, each gemstone comes complete with a grading report from an independent lab or our team of GiA and AGS trained experts. Unique laser inscriptions provides positive proof identification. And free loss protection is provided by a complimentary one-year insurance policy through Gem Shield. Your yearly Black Box Gemstone purchases could even earn you rewards in rebate dollars.
So what does it mean to be hand selected? It means traveling the world in search of perfect gemstones. it means bringing home quality and brilliance. it means putting our customers first.