Three Theories for the Great Silence, page-117

My concern is still the same as it was in an earlier post area. The specials should have been halve or 3/4 cut when they changed strategy, as they were to have been started a while ago and I am concerned with the stones ability to be cut without fracturing. now that would be a good reason to stall any sale. Stones from certain locations react differently to similar stones from other locations.

Good example is most sapphires are heat treated to increase their clarity etc and some of the best blues I have seen in Australia in recent years are from far north Queensland around the lava plains. The issue with this area- color is great, size is small and you can not heat treat anything. My understanding is they have minute gas pockets and explode if you try and treat them the same as other sapphires.

i am more concerned whether they have a processing issue that was causing issues.

On the other hand we never heard of blood diamonds until a little mine in WA (Argyle) decided to avoid the large consortiums etc and sell direct to the market. All of a sudden nearly every celebrity up in arms around the world that we should buy from the Large clearing houses and avoid blood diamonds, So Argyle joined the fold and it isnt a term that gets used much again. incredible marketing really. So yes peer or industry pressure and or a processing issue, neither have to be negative.

The example of the Lava plains stones above isnt a negative as they are wonderful stones but it took a while to figure how to best handle them, could be something similar.

So i am not looking at loosing my hold anytime soon. But clarity around the entire situation would be nice.