Buying Emeralds on Your Travels to Colombia

Colombia may not be the first place you think of when you plan a vacation, but you’d be surprised at how it’s catching on as a tourist destination. It’s not for the average tourist just yet, but those with an appetite for something different are experiencing the colonial romance of Cartagena, the tropical beach paradise of Tayrona, the beautiful women and salsa of Cali, eternal spring in Medellin, and perhaps the rapidly expanding center of it all in Bogota. Wherever it is that tourists are going, invariably they leave wanting to take some part of Colombia back with them. There are the usual items, coffee, woven bracelets, leathers, Botero figurines, and even brides; but those wanting to take back something truly special and valuable without getting married turn to Colombia’s world famous emeralds.

Travelers will find emeralds for sale in most of the major Colombian cities, but particularly in touristic Cartagena and in downtown Bogota, which is where most of the domestic and international-bound emerald trade is based. Cartagena is great for travelers who don’t plan to go inland, but you’ll pay tourist prices on just about everything… especially on emeralds. Cali and Medellin have their jewelry and tourist shops with emeralds for sale, but there isn’t much to choose from unless you go to fine jewelry stores. Don’t expect any bargains. For the best selection and your best chance at getting a good deal, there really is no alternative but to head to Bogota.

Before you even think about going to downtown Bogota looking for emeralds, or anywhere else for that matter, you really need to do a reality check and ask yourself the following questions... 1) How much do I know about emeralds? 2) How will I know I’m getting the real thing? and 3)How do I know I’m not getting the gringo discount? If an honest answer to the first question doesn’t scare you, you might be ok. But chances are the next website you visit will be Embassy Emeralds or the Google search page. Quite honestly, some of the best information you will find outside of a good jewelry and gemology book will be right here in our blog archives, on the About Emeralds page of the Embassy Emeralds website, or in the Emerald Encyclopedia. Do your homework!

If you completed the assignment, you might dare to slip on past question #1, but now you’ve come to the realization that in order to feel comfortable about question #2, you’re going to need some help. You could invest $100-$300 in a book or two, a loupe, a Chelsea filter, a synthetic emerald filter, and perhaps a few other tools you may never use again or you can contact us for help. We’ll arrange to talk by phone and be as helpful as we can. We don’t keep much inventory in Colombia, but we’ll gladly share some knowledge of a few local dealers we know to be reputable, advise you on the purchase, and even translate if needed. Expert help is always a good thing and it will help you eliminate doubts about question #3. If it doesn’t, you can always walk away to buy coffee and bracelets.

One last bit of advice… if you make it as far as where they sell emeralds and jewelry on your own, avoid the hundreds of emerald comisionistas you may see on the street. It’s no place to buy good, authentic emeralds or stand around with wads of pesos in your pockets. Good Luck!

A Lesson on Gold

Pure gold is rated as 24 karat. Alloys that are less than pure are rated with a karat rating proportional to the percent of pure gold in the alloy. For example a gold alloy that is 75% pure is rated with a value that is 75% of what is considered pure. So in this case, it’s 18 karat. Taking it further, you can calculate that 14 karat gold is approximately 58% pure. If you learned something from that explanation, you’re probably wondering… why not use pure gold? and what makes up the other percentage?

Jewelers use pure gold less often to make a complete piece because of 3 main reasons. A) Using 24kt gold makes the piece much more expensive. B) The color of pure gold is a bit too much for most people’s taste. It needs to be lightened up a bit. C) Pure gold is softer than the mixed alloys. That isn’t to say that it’s not hard. It’s still a metal, but it will be perhaps more susceptible to nicks, scratches, and dings.

Now that you understand the ‘why’, here’s what you’re probably more interested in knowing… Gold alloys that are less than 24 karat are mixed with other pure metals to physically harden it up and to soften its color. In the case of yellow gold, silver and copper is used. For white gold alloys, silver and palladium is what the recipe calls for. Different jewelers might add these metals in slightly different amounts, but the amount added in relation to the amount of gold used will determine the final karat rating. The mixture Embassy Emeralds uses for 18kt white gold is 10 grams 24kt gold alloyed with 1.65 grams each of both silver and palladium. When you do the math, you come up with 13.3 grams of 18kt gold, or a 75% pure alloy. The same amounts are used in the yellow gold recipe, but with pure copper used instead of palladium.

Some jewelers will take a cheaper path. They’ll use nickel and zinc in their alloys instead of the more expensive metals called for to make it a quality alloy. There are two big drawbacks to doing this and they mostly impact the end customer…. A) These cheaper metals are the ones that tend to cause allergic reactions and irritations. The reason pure gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and copper is used is due to their very low reactivity with other elements. If they don’t react with anything, they can’t oxidize easily or cause irritation. B) The alloy becomes brittle and difficult to work with after a while. Since the jeweler’s taking the cheap route, he’s also probably casting the piece instead of working the metal by hand. He’s not concerned about it, but imagine the customer who needs a resize or breaks a prong on a setting. It’s going to be a lot more difficult to work with.

With the rising price of gold, we can probably expect more of this in the market. It's unfortunate, but it's either that or significant price increases which have already begun industry wide as jewelers struggle to keep their revenues up enough to stay in line with the gold price increases and be able to afford new merchandise.

As you can see, there is more to your gold jewelry than you thought. But you shouldn’t have to think about it. It should be the quality you expect and not give you problems. Embassy Emeralds makes all of its gold jewelry in 18kt. We find it to be of excellent quality and appearance and ideal for most jewelry applications. We will however take requests to work in 14kt or 22kt gold on custom pieces.