All That Glitters Website and Info Changes for April 2011!

Here are the changes to look for on the All That Glitters website for April 2011:

This Months Special: Save 10% on Fordite - Choose the piece that you like best!

Choose from several pieces of this naturally occurring oddity!

This Months Gem News: 12,000+ct Rough Tanzanite Found!

TanzaniteOne Ltd. has recovered a 12,000-plus ct. tanzanite, one of the largest tanzanite gemstones ever found, it announced March 1...

Newly Faceted or Photographed Gemstones:
http://www.atggems.com/Photos_New.htm

Lots of unique one of a kind pieces, exactly what one expects from All That Glitters!

We have added a number of fine agate pieces. We couldn't pass on these items because the colors, patterns,

sizes and the fact that they were aesthetically beautiful and all natural! Hard to believe that nature can create such wonderful items and we don't even have to facet them - just polish.... Another great find was a piece of Arizona Petrified Wood with the top and front polished, but all the sides have intact bark - really a nice specimen!

Also, Recently Photographed Items Include the following:

Faceted Quartz with Blue Fluorite Crystals

3 INCREDIBLE Flashy Ethiopian Opals, chosen from a large parcel. The Best of the Best. Amazing Colors - photos do not do them justice.

A large Agate Slice with stand - great in reflected light and even better via transmitted light!

4 Fine Pieces of Canadian Ammolite (spent hours choosing only 4 pieces)

18 Pieces of the Finest ARIZONA Fire Agate that I have seen. Got first pick on new material - scarce and not being mined and prices are crazy...

6 pieces of the much awaited Fordite (haven't had this material for years)

Purple Garnet including 3 sets of Matched Pairs - selling below the current wholesale prices seen in two dealers inventory

Two sparking Green Grossular Garnet (1 Round Tsavorite and 1 Cushion Deep Neon Mint Merelani)

270cts Owyhee Sunset Picture Jasper - and what a picture!

Quartz with Tourmaline Needles and some other mineral that looks like Cotton Candy!

361ct Enhydro Light Smoky Quartz (if not sold by late April, a dealer wants it for his private collection)

62ct Quartz Crystal with phantom(?), green chlorite inclusions and ???

Round NEON Pink Sapphire

Deep Purple Sapphire with blue highlights

A signed Rapp With Wood Rhodochrosite/Turquoise Custom One-of-a-Kind Wooden Jewelry box - usually sold in high end galleries

A Fossilized Wood (Agate) Hand-Carved Octopus watching over eggs

Fossilized Walrus Ivory worked by Eskimos for their survival with scrimshaw applied hundreds of years later - both items have appeared in a book on gemstones

Customer Purchases $8,000+ 3.30ct Blue Sapphire from All That Glitters, appraised in PA store at $15,000 retail!

We know that our prices are at wholesale, below wholesale, just over wholesale, or in between wholesale and retail, but our forte is not the retail market since our sales are 90% to the trade. Our thoughts were that this piece would be perhaps 50% more in a storefront, but the appraiser felt otherwise, appraising it at over 80% more than the All That Glitters customer purchase price...

All That Glitters Current Inventory of our Available Published
Gemstones - View All That Glitters Gemstones that have appeared in Books, Magazines and Articles and that are available for purchase...

http://www.atggems.com/Photos_Published.htm

*** Updated Recently so please visit and let us know your thoughts!

Another Trade Perspective on Sales, Increasing Prices and the New Buyers....

Although the foot traffic at our booth (Tucson 2011) seemed to be about the same as last year, people spent more money and high end goods were in demand. Other dealers we spoke with supported our view that high end and unique goods did quite well.

...the challenge has been to buy stones at the price we like. All fine stones have increased; some dramatically. Good to fine rubies lead the increases (verified by Christie’s sale of an 8+ carat stone for $3.6 million).

Sapphire, Tsavorites, Spinels, Tourmaline and other high quality stones have also taken big jumps. The reason is simple; increasing world demand and not much supply. Countries that are getting wealthy, like Russia, India and China, have populations that have historically stored their wealth in gold and gems. The continuing world turbulence, as witnessed in the Middle East and Japan, as well as the well documented financial crisis in the U.S and Europe, has increased people’s interest in owning portable hard assets.

The lower end and middle markers in the U.S remain sluggish, although they are showing some slight improvement. I have noticed that even these markets are getting somewhat more demanding as they require better cutting of stones and higher quality of workmanship. Our expectation is that the U.S market will continue to improve.

Another factor impacting our industry has been metal prices. With the surges in prices of gold, platinum and silver have come some interesting reactions. Palladium is getting closer examination by manufacturers. Silver is taking a more prominent position in high end goods. More consideration is being given to designs that use less metal.

(As we indicated in a previous publications, silver is becoming the new gold - visit our Jewelry Photos page for custom hand-made sterling silver pieces with unusual All That Glitters gemstones, cabochons and more! http://www.atggems.com/Photos_Jewelry.htm)

12,000ct Tanzanite Crystal Found

Posted on March 1, 2011 (JCK Online Article)


TanzaniteOne Ltd. has recovered a 12,000-plus ct. tanzanite, one of the largest tanzanite gemstones ever found, it announced March 1.
The 12,100 ct. rough stone was discovered at the company's flagship tanzanite project in the Simanjiro district of Tanzania. Initial examinations have indicated that it is the third largest tanzanite recovered by the company and could be the third largest tanzanite stone ever found....

Read More on the following page and view a Photo!
http://www.jckonline.com/2011/03/01/12000-carat-tanzanite-discovered


If the above page is not found, use a search engine with key words of:
12,000 carat Tanzanite Found

Large Gold Nugget Sells at Auction in March 2011

The nugget found in 2010 in Nevada County that has been reported on the news, in the newspapers, on-line and in the All That Glitters Monthly News as well as our Blog, has been sold. The nugget sold for $460,000 in mid-March 2011.

The actual gold content was somewhere about $170,000 (depending on the price of gold and this figure is based on approx $1400 per troy ounce). Fine mineral specimens, whether gold or crystals, typically sell well above the price of gold or gemstone content, due to rarity and beauty. Unfortunately, many fine specimens are melted or faceted, thus saving fine specimens can actually increase the final selling price.

You can read more on the following link:
http://www.usgoldbureau.com/news/565-washington-nugget-sells-460000

Should the above link be broken, use a search engine with key words of:
gold nugget $460,000

The nugget was sold to an East Coast client and was discovered in Nevada County, only about 40 minutes away from the All That Glitters winter office. (Can you think of any mineral/gemstone collectors from back east who would have an interest in a unique/rare specimen of California Gold Country, living in one hour proximity of where the nugget was auctioned????)

Note that All That Glitters has some fine small gold specimens from Australia, typically sold as 3 piece parcels and there is one large 1/2 ounce specimen! Though they sell for more than the current price of gold, it is nothing like the markup that one sees in the large nugget mentioned above! You can view our gold nuggets by searching the Misc Pages (1-5) found in our Photos Gallery Page: http://www.atggems.com/Photo_Gallery.htm