52 THE TARIFF ON GEMS
customers. Dealers must, therefore, be on their guard to purchase stones only from reputable, responsible houses.
In
the matter of the relative advantages to individuals in purchasing
diamond jewelry abroad and at home, Mr. Ludwig Nissen, president of the
American Jewelers' Protective Association, contributes some
illuminating information. He says, in the first place, that he has
never known a person to make as good purchases abroad as could have
been made at home. Methods of doing business in these goods are
entirely different on different sides of the Atlantic, and the customer
not versed in the technicalities that enter into the valuation of
jewels, must often fall more or less a prey to the merchant working
under a different code of commercial honesty than exists here. Also it
must be noted that the quality of precious stones sold in Europe is
very often not that desired by Americans.
