Whenever I think of "Montanas", or they are mentioned in my hearing, I remember two old-timers I once knew, dealers in precious stones—Moshe Tannenbaum
of London and Monsieur Gordon of Paris. These two worthies, both long
since dead, were human and likeable men whose little eccentricities and
frailties did not make their contemporaries think any less well of
them. Both had risen to affluence from humble beginnings because they
had courage and knew the game from A to Z (although they did not always
mind their p's and q's), nor had success spoiled them, inasmuch as they
remained hail fellow well met to the end, and even once in a while gave
an underdog a chance to get away with a small marrow bone.
Montanas
were still a novelty in the gem markets of the nineties of last
century, and the comparative value of this new variety of blue corundum
had as yet been by no means established. Many gem dealers did not even
know that the United States had become sapphire producing, and
Monsieur Gordon was one of these. On one of his periodical trips to
London, Tannenbaum, who was consignee of a big shipment of Montanas,
persuaded him to buy a rather large parcel of rough, without, however,
disclosing their origin.
Gordon
was convinced that for once he had got the better of the other fellow,
for the price was unusually low. When he took his parcel of stones to
his lapidary, however, he found that although some of the pieces
promised very well, he would not be able to market them as "Orientals".
Rightly holding that he should have been told the gems
