8 Takeaways from a Panel on Gemstone Cutting

project), all these cutters came to me and said, ‘Can you fill your suitcase up with laps and tweezers and diamond powder next time you come in?’ And I said, ‘Why do I have to do that? You’ve got Rio Grande’s catalog sitting right in front of you.’ And they said, ‘Our currency is not convertible. We can’t order it, so we have to go get foreign currency.’ So I said, ‘Go get foreign currency.’ And they said, ‘Well we can’t do that because the minimum amount is $2,000.’ At the time that was 10 years’ average income for anyone in Madagascar.”
-- Eric Braunwart

On obstacles in India

“The biggest problem for our cutting factories recently is a regular supply of material … I know everyone must [wonder] why India is seeing so few cutters coming up in this business. That’s the reason; there’s no stability for them. We have to find a proper supply chain that we can definitely sustain all those cutters if they want to work with us.”
-- Dharmendra Tank

On Americut’s robotic cutting technology and its role in the sector

“We are trying to produce something that is technically very precise. We’ve started implementing a certification, so to speak, by scanning the gemstones and producing a symmetry grade, which is the exact same one that they use for diamonds with the GIA. This has never been heard of and I don’t know if it could be replicated in the future either, but it certainly creates a fingerprint for the gemstone that you know it’s not from overseas.”
-- Rachel Hill

On the need to tell the story

“If you’ve been to the factories, then you know and you’ve seen probably firsthand the passion and the art of cutting. And those are stories that I think we need to add to our repertoire, whether at the retail level or any level of the supply chain, because these people who are cutting these gemstones will literally tell you that the stones speak to them and tell them how they should be cut and what these stones want to be. There’s another great value-added story that we really should add to our repertoire to help the consumer understand just how many people, and how many passionate people, are involved in our process.”
-- Brandee Dallow

“It is about stories, but it’s also about very succinct stories. It’s about stories that consumers themselves can repeat. Just because you can tell them a good story doesn’t mean it’s a story that they can tell their friends. ‘Oh I bought because I heard about this guy, I met this guy, and he does this and I wanted one and that’s why I bought this.’ That is missing in our trade to a large extent. And even more so because we are so heavily involved in technology and trading information so it becomes ‘I have this, this and this—the same as everybody else—and I can sell it to you cheaper.’ If that is the only story we have to tell people, we’re doomed.”
-- Maarten de Witte