This content was first published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review no. 13 in 2021. The information provided here is therefore current as of the original publication date.
The colored stone mining company Fura Gems is now taking to international auctions. The new season after the international slowdown started with the first auction held from August 16 to 21 in Jaipur and the second from August 30 to September 12, in Bangkok.
And now it’s the turn of sapphires. Following its acquisition of Australian mining company Capricorn Sapphire in late 2019, after taking over Great Northern Mining last year and their respective sapphire mining licenses in Queensland, Australia, for the first time, Fura Gems will be offering for sale rough and untreated sapphires in Bangkok from November 15-19, 2021.
Fueling the placement of a flow of 5.5 million carats of sapphires – this much will be produced in Australia in 2012 according to the CEO Shetty – is not an easy job at all.
But it might be an even more challenging task stimulating the demand growth driving the consumption base. For colored gemstones the situation we are currently experiencing is similar to what De Beers found on the threshold of the take-off of jewelry consumption after World War II. In order to govern a stable placement of the rough material it was necessary to take action with campaigns that would increase end customer buying attitudes.
This is the reason why Fura Gems, which also mines Colombian emeralds and Mozambican rubies, has launched the new Fura Marketing Council, a colored stone member-based marketing platform connecting the supply chain from rough to retail. The initiative has been taken in partnership with MVI Marketing which found that nearly half among the interviewed consumers are likely to buy colored stones in the next two years. The market test also revealed that manufacturers and dealers make a higher profit margin from colored stones than they do from diamonds.
Gem News published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review #13, Autumn 2021
