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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.