For The Love of Gems!

Our gem events have been one of the most longstanding and anticipated events we have at the shop. I want to tell you just a bit about my two favorites and tempt you to join us at one or both!!

Every three months, we host a Gemstone Roundtable that highlights the work of one special gem artist as they show off what they do. This artist will bring over 150 stones and for two nights in a row, we drool over them. We invite up to 15 of our gem lovin’ clients to join us as we play with the gems, see the unique faceting, learn about their qualities and characteristics as we are sometimes moved to tears by their rare beauty. And if you are moved to the point that you can't imagine living without that gem, you can make it your very own!

We’ve had many of our favorite gem artists return year after year with their new work. They’ve become favorites for more than just one reason. Their unique artistry, their reliable great quality gem material, the stories they tell about where the gemstone rough came from. Many of our regular Gemstone Roundtable guests look forward to seeing the new collections of their favorite gem cutters each year.

We love bringing back these ‘old’ friends but we want to introduce you to ‘new’ friends too!!

Every year when the team attends the Tucson Gemshow, one of our top goals is to be on the look out for new fresh gem cutting talent we can invite to the shop to introduce to you as they show their stones at a Gemstone Roundtable.

This October 11th and 12th from 6-9pm, we want you to meet Darryl Alexander and his son Nick. Darryl and Nick are a father/son team from Arizona and their cutting is really special. Darryl began his design career in clothing design but soon discovered gems and jewelry were really meant for him and 30 years later, Darryl is a multiple award winning gem cutter, carver and miner. His resume is an impressive one! Darryl has won five Gemmy Awards, five AGTA Cutting Awards, five American Pearl Awards, three Arizona Jewelry Design Awards and two Headley-Whitley Bibliot Awards as well as being a featured artist at the Lizzardo and Whitley-Headley Museums.

We have 6 seats still available for this special event, please call the shop if you would like to attend. You are really going to want to meet these two and see their amazing work.

Another main priority at this unbelievably massive gem show (MASSIVE = over $100 million spent with over 1000 vendors by over 100 thousand attendees) is to buy treasures for The Tucson Preview Event that we hold at the shop every February when we return from the show. When I say ‘treasures’ I really mean it!

We hunt through literally HUNDREDS of gem dealers for things we have not seen before.

We dig through literally THOUSANDS of loose gems to find the best of the best to bring back.

We score the BEST DEALS possible by bringing cash and buying volume-and by being nice. After all, we are Minnesotans, nice is our specialty when negotiating.

Plus...we always bring back some other things for this event like cashmere pashminas for a fraction of what you’d spend at Nordstroms, patina copper and agate bowls, mineral specimens, hand carved mineral boxes. We never know what we will find for you but we know it when we see it.

And your part? You invest in us.

For a $500 investment you will earn the privilege of attending the Tucson Preview Event and be first to see what we found. If you dont spend your $500 investment that night, we will give it all back to you and say ‘thank you for helping us bring all these treasures back!’

If you DO find a treasure or two you want, you can purchase it with your investment at a lower price at the night of the event, just because you supported us!

I know many of you have heard me say “there’s not much of that left...” when talking about gemstones. But its true-we hear it from miners all over this show.

Gem mines play out and mineral species become so rare they are nearly extinct. A mineralogical event hundreds of thousands of years ago caused a little pocket of something extraordinary to evolve. A human stumbles upon it - sees its intoxicating beauty - develops a hunger for it that will not quit until its all dug up. Then its gone.

A rare stone is a metaphor for all things in life and I personally think that time is fleeting and I should let the stones that move me to tears pass through my hands while we are both still here.