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Gem Trader
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If,
however, the offer is rejected, the owners may in their reply cable
state another price, but as a rule the potential buyer has to increase
his bid by slow stages until he and the owner meet—By cable—at a common
price. Your Oriental merchant is not in great haste to part with his
wares even by cablegram, so that gem-buying from half-way across the
world may demand just the same virtues of patience and insight into
your opponent's mentality as buying a curio in an Oriental bazaar. But
there is one difference, at least. The buyer can take his time without
fearing that another will cut in with a better offer, for no one else
can see the goods, which, pending the ultimate decision, have been
placed under his own seal in a safeguarding envelope according to the
unvarying custom of the trade.
Long-distance
bids and the protracted nature of the proceedings, however, make it
virtually impossible for the small dealer to buy at first hand from
source. He must come in at a later stage of the proceedings.
There
are several ways open to the merchant who has completed a successful
purchase and taken up a parcel of stones. He can, if he is known as a
real expert and a keen buyer, obtain a profit from another dealer by
merely disclosing what the goods cost him. In normal times a profit
margin of anything from five to seven and a half per cent will be
offered him "blind", that is without even an inspection beforehand of
the goods contained in the sealed envelope.
Another way is to break the original seal and show
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