The Hidden Gem

In this episode of the Hidden Gem, Laurent Cartier meets Brian Cook, a geologist and gem hunter who has spent more than four decades working with Brazilian gems and minerals. The conversation moves through Brian's geology studies in California, funded by gems his Brazilian mother-in-law carried up from Salvador, his first buying trip to the Socotó emerald diggings in the Bahian outback, and the remote valley where he became the first foreigner the village had ever seen — and where he still sources rutilated quartz forty years later.

Brian and Laurent turn to Paraíba tourmaline. In 1988, while running a grassroots gold exploration company in Northeast Brazil, Brian asked a contact in Parelhas for aquamarine and was shown a plate of vivid blue and green stones instead. He describes the colour filling his mind for months afterwards, tracking down Heitor — the miner who had dug at Batalha for seven years before his crew finally hit cuprian tourmaline while he was away, only to return and find armed men on his claim — and carrying the first crystals to GIA in Santa Monica, where a short note in Gems & Gemology became the first published mention of the find. By Tucson in 1990 the stone had a name and a reputation: prices that opened around $250 per carat reached $2,500 within six days, and have never fallen since.

Brian also discusses the two later Brazilian finds and why only one still produces today, why some cuprian tourmalines are heated and others are not, and how blue apatite briefly fooled the market. He reflects on the decades-long dispute over the original mine, on mapping Batalha in 1991 and presenting the discovery at the GIA symposium that year alongside Campbell Bridges and tsavorite, and on his work with artisanal miners in Bahia — how he used an obscure provision in Brazilian mining law to formalise claims without paying a bribe, then showed other local landowners how to do the same, and why he believes small-scale mining communities can supply the credible, provable stories the coloured gemstone industry keeps asking for.

About the guest

Links

https://www.instagram.com/goldenrutilatedquartz/

Credits

In this opening episode of Hidden Gems, Laurent Cartier meets Helen Molesworth at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where she serves as Senior Curator of Jewellery and was lead curator of the 2025 Cartier exhibition.

About the guest

Website: https://www.helenmolesworth.com

Books by Helen Molesworth

Precious: The History and Mystery of Gems Across Time (Penguin, 2024)

Credits

Transcript

Helen Molesworth: When we look at gems and we look at jewels, we are studying a subject that touches on more levels of humanity than any other subject in the world. We have chemistry, physics, geology, finance, the art history of the jewels they're mounted in, the design and the creativity of how they're made in the first place, the human stories of the people that wear them, the exciting world record prices that make millions a carat, all these extraordinary stories. Build up a very big picture that no other subject in the world covers in its entirety.

Show Opener: SSEF presents the Hidden Gem Podcast, conversations with the world's leading people behind the journey of gems and jewels from the source to the finished piece.

Laurent Cartier: Welcome to Hidden Gems, a podcast by SSEF, exploring the history, culture, science, and human stories behind gemstones. I'm Laurent Cartier, and today I'm speaking with Helen Molesworth, jewellery historian, gemologist, and author of the book „Precious“. We met at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London during the 2025 blockbuster Cartier exhibition, which she curated. So you may even hear the hum of the museum around us. We talk about why gems and jewels have always stirred something deeply human, the thrill of discovery, the instinct to collect, and the desire to transform beauty into meaning. From geology to finance, from power to romance, we explore why gemstones and jewellery sit at the crossroads of science, history, art, and emotion.

Laurent Cartier: Well, Helen, great to be here. We're at the V&A, the Victoria Albert Museum in London. Thank you so much for welcoming me here. You're a jewellery historian and a gemmologist whose career spanned what, 25 years? Sotheby's, Christie's to setting up the Gübelin Academy. And you're now senior curator of jewellry at the V& A and lead curator of the museum's blockbuster Cartier exhibition here. An author of the book Precious, which came out in 2024 and was published by Penguin. Wow, what a biography.

Helen Molesworth: Thank you, Laurent, that's very kind.

Laurent: The first question I'd have for you is I read that you broke your leg at age six, climbing up a wall to get an amethyst geode. Now most six-year-olds would have been cured of rock hunting forever. What made you even more obsessed?

Helen: I think, well firstly can I say it's gorgeous to be with you here today so thank you so much for coming to the V&A for us to chat. I think that early story was really seminal in my life decisions. The first was, the first part of it was before the breaking of the leg what happened was my godfather showed me this amazing jewel. It was an this geode which he put into my little hands at the age of six. And I remember thinking that he had just placed a new universe in front of me and I had access to this magical world of sparkling purple crystals and it was very clear to him, I think, that I wasn't going to let go of it so he took it and thought he had hid it from me by hiding it on top of a dry stone wall. And I remember thinking, I'm not having this, and I waited for him to leave, and climbed up the wall and pulled the whole wall down on top of myself, breaking the leg, looking for the geode. And the second part of the story is that it was this first, you know, excitement of seeing this amazing jewel, this gem. But the second part was the discovery and then the chase. And I think many of us in the gem world were always on the hunt for the excitement of something new. And I remember thinking when I broke my leg, okay, I've broken my leg but I didn't get to keep the amethyst geode. And I've been on the hunt for gems ever since.

Laurent: Lovely and another thing that struck me is that you cheerfully described your work as all things bling. Now it's a word that most people use dismissively or rather dismissively so are you trying to reclaim it or is there something genuinely subversive about being serious about sparkly things? What is your relationship to that word bling?

Helen: I love that. You couldn't be more right. That is exactly what this is. I am trying to reclaim everything jewellery for everybody because one of the biggest difficulties we have in jewellery and gemstones is that people think it's an elite and very inaccessible part of… From my perspective now at the V&A, art history, from many other people's perspectives, financial gain. So, the difficulty is you have something that people think is inaccessible. You've got two options. You either dumb it down completely and make it accessible at the lowest level or you open up to everybody and you add some humor and I think this is so important for jewellery. Bling is attractive. It's what makes people think of celebrities and the glamorous side. There's nothing wrong with using that as the hook to get people in. But once you've got people attracted to that level of jewellery from a more light-hearted perspective, when we look at gems and we look at jewels, we are studying a subject that touches on more levels of humanity than any other subject in the world, in my opinion. If you think about gemstones, we have chemistry, physics, geology, finance, the art history of the jewels they're mounted in, the design and the creativity of how they're made in the first place, the human stories of the people that wear them, the exciting world record prices that make millions a carat. All these extraordinary stories build up a very big picture that no other subject in the world covers in its entirety. I mean mentioned sort of the fashion, the popularity of all the different design elements but also how that changes, how it tells us about trade routes, it tells us about social shifts, you can look at the history of gems and the history of jewellery and learn about entire cultures and the whole of humanity over thousands of years. That's partly what I write about in Precious but I think if you attract people by talking about bling you can see that there is a great attraction in that fun level but there is super-depth below. It's like the gems forming themselves, they're beautiful on the surface but they've formed very deep down.

Laurent: And then why did you call your book Precious then and not Bling? What is the difference between Bling and Precious?

Helen: I actually really liked the idea of calling it bling but you know with any project it's sort of a teamwork and I worked very closely with the publishers. And the idea was that it was something that had the depth to it, and it really has so many different levels. The word precious, it can be emotionally precious as well as financially precious. And I think that's really what attracts us so much to Gems is the human stories. It's a bit like you doing the podcasts. You want to hear from the people because we're the ones that at the ultimate level have created and wear and buy and sell these jewels.

Laurent: So can you tell me a little bit more about how this concept of precious has evolved through time? I mean, since ancient times, humans have been collecting stones, gemstones, jewellery. Does precious have a different connotation in different cultures, in different geographies, in different times?

Helen: I think it does, actually. I think that's very true. I think we see through gems how our approach towards value has shifted and our cultures have changed and how we have evolved. I would start by saying probably the most, the first thing that springs to my mind, imagine that first person that ever found a gemstone. There was a shining pebble on the side of a river, an alluvial deposit, and somebody picks up a brightly colored shining gem. What must that have felt like in an early culture? It must have been like a gift from the gods, or the first person that opened an oyster looking for food and discovers a pearl. You know, in Latin, unio, this unique thing, because you can't understand where it's come from. It's like a virgin birth. Pearls are a great example of how we see the approach to value and how we have changed our approach to gems over history. If you look at them in very early sort of biblical times, they're obviously to do with, you know, very important purity and value. So there's to do with this concept of preciousness being the rarity, the ownership of kings, the pearly gates of heaven. So they're associated with religion very early on. We see this in gems. Early cultures, religion's a form of governance, it's an important part of our culture. It's only now we've become secular in the last few hundred years in major cultures. You look at gemstones with their religious value and how those have been used as a way of associating with our belief systems. By the mediaeval period, gems start to become curative. So you see how humanity has gone from belief in a god to belief in science. So we start to look at gems by the 12th, even earlier, but you know, middle ages.

Laurent: So Hildegard von Bingen

Helen: Exactly, exactly. We've got the early lapidaries too. You know you've got Theophrastus, you've got plenty writing about gems but they're not necessarily talking about the curative properties. It's Hildegard and sort of the mediaeval lapidary who start to look at it from the curative property. And then just to sort of tie this up from the big picture, by the time we get to the 19th century especially in Britain, gems start to become romanticised. And we have people like Queen Victoria being given them by Prince Albert as love gifts and you start to see this association of the romantic sort of really emotional value of gems. So I think gems give us a big picture of human evolution and that's their value, their preciousness. It's changed from financial, religious, curative all the way through to romantic.

Laurent: So what's left in terms of symbols?

Helen: Goodness, that's an interesting one. What's going to come next for gems? Well, people have tried doing the blockchain. We've looked at the more technological usages of gemstones. I guess that's the excitement. We'll just wait and see. It's the next discovery, right?

Laurent: Yeah and in some form I sometimes think that there may also be a like back to the roots. I see that in as the a lot more people are interested in minerals now and being you know looking going looking for rocks going to nature. Maybe there is this technological side but at the same time gems somehow encapsulate a connection to nature or a connection to where we come from.

Helen: I think that's true because they're physically a connection to the Earth, but at the same time they are emotionally grounding. And I think this is something I haven't said that's the most obvious thing of all. Our attraction to gems is their beauty. And it's that very first moment I had when I was little, when I'm sick. That moment you see something beautiful, you just feel better. It lifts your heart, it lifts your spirits It makes you feel that the world is a larger place but you're focusing on something tiny and beautiful and I think there's that moment of wonder where it connects us to everything around us. I love this idea of what you said that it's grounding and it maybe it will come back to that again. I think you're right.

Laurent: Well I mean when I talk to people who have absolutely no interest in gems or jewels and you show them some stones there is that moment of wow you know if you have this very strong saturation of color or you have so much kind of concentrated in one small object there's few people who can not react to that and what's interesting also is to see how different people have kind of different affinities so why do you think that some people are attracted to certain gems and not others?

Helen: I think we have an innate attraction to certain colors, depending on our personality, so of course one of the wonderful things with colored gems is that we have that variety. I was going to say the other thing with gems is obviously the interaction with light. Light is one of our founding needs of humanity. Go to every major religious text and it's the beginning. You have a festival of light with Diwali, you have the beginning of Genesis with light being the beginning of creation. The way light interacts with gems is going to make us feel that we are at our most, I think, combination of our most fragile, the beginning our lives, but at the same time the greatest and most powerful. It's almost a religious experience. So I think the attraction for gems is light. I think that the difference is that people… The differences people feel towards different gems is certainly the color. You can look at it scientifically and say Americans like a different cut of diamonds from Europeans. I think that's one of the first things we were potentially erroneously taught in our early diamond studies. But people interact culturally in different ways, to different gemstones. So a very good example is jade. It's something that has taken me decades to learn enough about as a European, because I didn't grow up in Asia, but I spent eight years working in Hong Kong and China and learnt to understand and appreciate a gemstone that for thousands of years has been in the culture of the people. And in some cases like jade, gemstones are actually part of your upbringing, they're part of the meaning of what it is to be a good human being. And I think with globalisation and our understanding of the world becoming more easy with the internet and all kinds of connections, we're starting to assimilate all those different ideas across the world. So those cultural changes are becoming slighter and we're getting access to greater learning so we can appreciate gems in an easier way.

Laurent: And we're finding new ways to consume them, right? There's perhaps less rituals, less baptisms, less initiations, less things like that. But there's other opportunities for people to purchase or to self-purchase jewellery or gemstones or men wearing jewellery or women buying jewellery or gems for themselves. It's interesting to see how that evolves also through time.

Helen: Yes, I think they've become more accessible and our use of them has become more fluid. And like I said, we've got so many different ways in which we use jewellery too. You know, you think about people who believe in the crystal powers of gems, people who use them as a store of wealth, people use them because they are love gifts, people who use them because they symbolize a certain style that they want to put forward to the world in what they're wearing. You've got all these different purposes behind why people buy gems. And it's becoming more fluid the more we learn about them. I mean, you're a great educator, I've spent years in education. It's becoming easier to learn now because everything is so much more accessible.

Laurent: And what about synthetic gems or synthetic diamonds, which are everywhere now? It's actually nothing new. Artificial gems and gem treatments have been around since the ancient times. How is the human's link to treated material or artificial material kind of evolved? Do you have any insights on that?

Helen: Yeah it's a great question and obviously it's one that we talk about a lot at the moment with synthetic diamonds being so sort of so earth-shifting in the market. As a historian, it's not something that is surprising me at all as you say it's something that we have mastered in certain gemstones for hundreds of years. If you look at the shift in the market today with diamonds we only need to look a hundred years ago to what happened with synthetic rubies and culturing pearls. Where these were the two most valuable gemstones on the planet and after they could be replicated to a certain extent both markets crashed. Today they're both the most valuable gemstones again on the planet. I'm not saying that's what will happen with diamonds, there are different sort of different elements at play. But it's part of our human nature to want to create, to want to replicate, to make things better. Going even further back, you mentioned earlier examples. We've got texts from Pliny talking about how to crackle quartz and dye it green to turn it into fake emeralds. We got an amazing necklace here in the V&A that for many years was catalogued as a Roman emerald necklace. It's from the first century, small green hexagonal beads. It's variscite. The Romans were cutting another green gem material that clearly wasn't prismatic hexagonals crystals into what they wanted to look like emerald crystals. So we were faking these jewels 2000 years ago already, very purposefully. I think it's part of human nature to want to make something that looks like something that's valuable. But what we have to understand is the value is actually in that brilliant technological advancement of humanity. And one of the things I love seeing with synthetic diamonds is it's just another sign of what we as people have achieved. The fact that we can create synthetic diamonds, which we thought we couldn't do ever, you know. In 1950s General Electric managed to create a few… CVD, a few HPHT diamonds, but the idea that we can now create CVD at this level, it's a great technological breakthrough. We should be proud that we've managed to do this.

Laurent: And same with pearls, because people had tried for centuries and centuries and centuries to cultivate pearls and we had to wait until the early 20th century to get there.

Helen: Absolutely.

Laurent: This is very interesting but also coming back to pearls I mean in Roman times there were many experiments to create artificial pearls certain people were not allowed to buy pearls because there was so much demand and so little supply. Leonardo da Vinci was also had his recipe for imitating pearls so it's interesting I think there's two sides to that call one is that people are perhaps doing it fraudulently and the other is to in some ways make these materials more accessible. It's like not everybody has the funds to buy a five carat no heat ruby so by treating it that's it as long as it's correctly disclosed you're also making it more accessible to a wider audience.

Helen: Absolutely. I mean the culturing pearls is a great example where we talk about the democratization of jewellery and women wearing jewellery more freely in the 1920s. One of the reasons that you could wear, as Coco Chanel put it, ropes and ropes of pearls because they were cultured and you could suddenly get them. You didn't have to be a millionaire's wife at the time to be able to wear them, although it is interesting to note that she wore actually natural pearls and didn't tell anybody because she wanted to wear the natural pearls while she was telling everybody that you should wear pearls you can get your hands on.

Laurent: And she probably also wore some imitation pearls.

Helen: I'm sure she did too. I mean there are even stories that Elizabeth the Great, Elizabeth the First, we see her sort of covered in pearls in all these great 16th century portraits. There are stories that some of those pearls are beads with fish scales on them, whether that's true or not is another story, but it tells you how we understand that these gems have become more accessible historically.

Laurent: Why do you think she would have done that?

Helen: So that she could have as many as possible. And also it's a bit, I mean, it's a bit like, I wonder if synthetic diamonds will go this way, how less intrinsically valuable, i.e. cultured or synthetic gems, could be used as part of propaganda and showing yourself to the world. It becomes more of a costume, in a way. I don't want to say costume jewellery because I'm not degrading the use of the materials. Costume itself is how you present yourself. You look at these great Elizabethan portraits. It doesn't matter if they're real pearls or not. What they're saying is, I'm in charge of the seas. This is a marine valuable item. I am the head of the Armada. And look at me as the leader of Britain and the whole of Europe when I'm beating the Spanish. That's what her portraits are saying when she's wearing pearls. Everyone's going to assume they're real. Just wear as many as possible.

Laurent: So jewels and gems are stories.

Helen: They are stories.

Laurent: Well, I came to the right place then.

Helen: Talking of stories, I've been dying to ask you if I may, how did you get into gems and what's your first love, your first feeling when you had that early interaction?

Laurent: I think there's kind of several angles to it, but one of the first reasons was that I met Henry Hänni, who was a professor of mine at university, and he showed all these pictures of mining regions and travels and had stories to tell. And I realized coming out of geology that that is really something that I loved about gemology is there's, as you said before, there's history, there is finance, there psychology, there's… There's symbolism, there's history, there is cutting-edge science, there is biology, there's physics, there's earth sciences. It's a mix of what being a human or living on this planet is in a way.

Helen: I love that.

Laurent: And it would probably be the same with wine or with something else, or fashion could also have that. But somehow, for me, it was gemstones and there's so much still to discover. So it's really this curiosity, you know. I've had many years where I've worked on pearls and other things and it just never gets boring.

Helen: You never know what's coming next, right? From the jewellery and the gem perspective, you never know which piece of jewellery someone might show you in a jewellery box. You never what you might find in a safe. But with gems, you never what's gonna come out of the earth next. In our life alone, how many new discoveries have we seen? We've seen new deposits of spinel. We've see new species of garnets. We've seen whole areas in Africa start to be developed. I just find it so exciting. I think you're an adventurer too by nature, aren't you?

Laurent: Well, yeah, I quite like traveling to gem-producing regions, and that will be my next question. You visited some interesting mining regions. What has field work taught you as a curator that books couldn't?

Helen: Books can't teach you a lot of things because they are a singular interaction from your own side with the intellectual. Fieldwork takes you to the people. And I think by going out to the places where the gems come from originally, I was trying to connect with those local communities. I've always wanted to know where the gems come from intellectually, and academically it's important to understand the process and how gems get to us, where they come from, the geology of the formation which you need to see in situ, and perhaps the newest discoveries that are happening to be at the edge of the information we need in our industry. But the real reason is that I wanted to understand the people that were working with these gems. I feel that bling, going back to the bling question, we can sometimes make it very light-hearted and jewellery and gems can be this one-sided high-value elitist subject. You look at a world record sapphire in an auction and not enough people think who mined that? Where did that come from? What processes had to happen for that to get to us today? For it to be $15 million.

Laurent: So what does bling or precious look like in a mine in Sri Lanka or in Mogok in Burma?

Helen: Like nothing you could ever imagine because it looks like mud and dirt and sweat and hard work because that's what it is. But it also looks like passion and pride and people that have had generations behind them working really hard for something they believe in. I had some really seminal experiences in Sri Lanka where I go back every year now, so I'll be going back in January and I've been for many years and I go to the same mines where I see the same families but also the same region that they were mining sapphires 2000 years ago. So historically it's very important to understand how the landscapes change and how the earth is still in some places sustainably giving us gems over a long period of history if those countries are managed well. Sri Lanka is a great example of sustainable mining, small-scale artisanal mining, where they want the families to continue to operate. And I go to these mines, they're just small shaft mines in paddy fields by the rivers. You go 30 feet down and you hit the gravels where the sapphires have settled in the old riverbeds. The miners are working with quite basic conditions, but I can remember three or four years ago going down one of these mines and meeting a mine manager I'd seen several times. And we were stuck waiting for something to happen and just chatting and I said look I come every year What can I bring you and he said I said, you know, I don't want to bring you cigarettes I can't bring you chocolate. It's gonna melt. What can bring you he said just bring me more people: I want people to see what we do. We're proud of our work and that was actually one of the reasons I wrote Precious because I want everybody in the world to understand how we end up with these beautiful objects. They don't come out of nowhere, they come out out of hard work and pride.

Laurent: Well, well said. And for the Cartier exhibition that's currently on at the V&A, you had to choose 350 objects. How do you go about choosing these objects? And how do you put together an exhibition for an audience that has an ever shorter attention span?

Helen: That is a brilliant question. Quite the challenge, no? It is. Luckily, I have a short attention span because I like things that are sparkly and beautiful, so I get easily distracted, a bit like a magpie. So I do find that premise quite easy to start with. The challenge in putting together an exhibition of 350 beautiful objects is firstly where to start and secondly how to cut it down to just 350 because when you look at the history of jewels produced by Cartier there are so many amazing jewels to start with so I will be blunt I had a top 10 top 20 absolute highlights from Cartier's production that we had to get in the exhibition and I had that as serious points where these are the best jewels they've to be in there, because you want people to see the best of the best. The other side though is you want to tell a story. So I wanted to tell a story of creativity, craftsmanship and legacy. That was the three pillars because they're things that the V&A believes in. But also, and this is the trick in creating a narrative for a museum, you have to have very clear messages and sound bites. And you tell small, little stories at a time, but give people the opportunity to delve deeper, if that's the way they're inclined. And I think the key to a good exhibition is you could walk to one piece of jewellery straight away see that and you could walk out of the exhibition again and be happy because that one story taught you something or showed you something beautiful but if you want to spend three hours in there and learn the whole story and see how it's pieced together great so it's a bit like I remember putting Academy together putting together the teaching for colored gemstones we would have people come to the classes who might be third generation big diamond dealers. They might have just started out on a journey of being interested in gems. One guy was a pilot, one person was a lady married somebody rich, you've got to attract everybody at different levels. Gems have something for everyone. I swear. I still think that's the only history subject in the world that does. Gems and jewels have something for everybody and that's how we put together the exhibition

Laurent: Beautiful. So the exhibition is running until November 2025?

Helen: Middle of November, November the 15th, the great news is it's been sold out.

Laurent: But there is a book.

Helen: There is a book and the book has sold 40,000 copies and made the Sunday Times bestsellers list twice. So the Cartier book published by the V&A, it's beautiful, it has some wonderful images and I've written a chapter actually called An Obsession with Gems. So this was what Louis Cartier said about gems to his salesman in 1922. He said to them, you must make the client obsessed with gems and I remember thinking that's how I want people to feel when they come to this exhibition. I want them to feel obsessed with gems. I have been obsessed with gems as long I can remember and I think that everybody has something they can find in gems they will find a hook into.

Laurent: Because that's the trouble of gemologists sometimes, is that we're so focused on the gemstones that we kind of forget the jewellery piece. When we look at the gallery space that you have here at the V&A, are there pieces that you look at, you look at the whole piece, or you're more interested in the gem, or how do you kind of navigate?

Helen: Well I think this is a really important point and I think it's where I've been very lucky to find a niche in my career particularly. I was always interested in science. I came into it as a jewellery historian and art historian initially and then studied gemology. That became the big thing for the following ten years and then I've come back to jewellery. One of the things that's so clear in our industry and slightly frustrating is you have scientific earth science gemologists and you have jewellery historians and never the twain shall meet. It often feels as if we are two different species of people. You're one of these great people that I know I can talk gems and jewellery with together and I do feel like we have a responsibility to sort of bring those worlds to collide and to meet again. I have jewels in the gallery that no one's ever looked at from a gemological perspective and have discovered immense meaning behind the gems in medieval and Renaissance jewels because jewellery historians didn't realize that those gems were selected for specific purposes. On the other side, I have gems that I look at, that they have great gemological purpose, but the mounting, because they've been looked at because they're a blue diamond, the mounting is incredibly important and it tells us something about the history of how that was made. It's where gems and jewels meet that the magic happens, in my opinion.

Laurent: Well put. Well put and jewellery and gemstones aren't just beautiful to kind of follow up on that. They can be links to world history and you've got a few pieces here in the gallery and probably also in the in the Cartier exhibition. Can you share an example of that?

Helen: I think I might talk about my favorite jewel in the Cartier exhibition, which is the Williamson diamond brooch, because this is an example of exactly where an important gemstone gets made into an important jewel and together they create something spectacularly important historically. So the Williamson diamond was discovered in Tanzania, Tanganyika at the time, was a 56 carat rough pink, I think. And in 1947, the owner of the mine, Tom Williamson, gave it to Princess Elizabeth as an engagement gift when she got engaged to Prince Philip, so this was the future Queen of England. It was then cut in London to a 23 carat pink diamond, one of the most perfect pinks I've ever seen because the cut itself is this beautiful round transitional 30s 40s style cut pink non-modified, beautiful cut of a diamond and it was mounted by Cartier in 1953 in a flower brooch. 1953 was the year of the coronation of the Queen. We now have a diamond and a jewel that we have the entire history for that was given at the engagement of a future Queen of England, made into a jewel the year of her coronation, worn to the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana, and has become one of the most important gems in the Royal Collection. Even more wonderful, we have found in the archives here in the V&A, a whole selection of drawings that were made by Frederick Mew, the designer at Cartier, of different iterations of the brooch, which have never been seen before. So we even see the creative process of different ways in which the diamond could be mounted, one with a circle around it that says, Her Majesty the Queen approved.

Laurent: So she commissioned the piece, or she commissioned Cartier?

Helen: We don't know whether she commissioned it per se but she certainly was shown the drawings and chose the final example. Now that is a great example of a piece of British history and when you look at that within the perspective of the sort of the personality of these great people, together with their choices, their involvement in creativity. Cartier at this point was a British business, so the British royal family was supporting Cartier as a British industry, as part of British jewellery industry. But also it's that personal element that she was involved at that level. So she had a choice. She emotionally preferred one brooch and that's the one we see today. She loved it, we know that from the drawings and from the time she wore it. So jewellery tells us a lot about historic moments.

Laurent: What does the piece or the design itself express, because we talked about Elizabeth the first before, what do you see in that piece?

Helen: It's very interesting because in one book, only one, but somebody we trust, Nadelhofer, who wrote about Cartier, he calls it an Edelweiss. Which, coming from Switzerland, as you too as well, I'm sure appreciate immensely, we don't know why if that was the inspiration. There seem to be other flower drawings, one looks like a chrysanthemum. I think he was using different flower images, but one of the things it does tell us is that in the 1950s naturalism in jewellery was a really important style. That sounds like people just like flowers. We can dumb it down if we like. Flowers are beautiful, nature's a sort of thing that makes us all very happy. But actually, historically, think of what was happening post-war. The country's gone through the hardest time in modern history. Going back to nature goes back to what we said it grounds us, it creates this sense of escapism and relief because it's natural and beautiful and joyous and this reason that we see so many flower jewels in the 1940s and 50s is because it is a post-war escapism. When you realize that's the emotional reason behind this particular period of jewellery history Suddenly for me, I find that very emotive very touching It's not just that they're pretty, it's because a whole society has gone through massive, difficult changes. And jewellery is alleviating that and bringing us joy again.

Laurent: And a new birth, a new blossoming it is. …And then with her coronation…

Helen: I love that. It's a bit like emeralds, it's a new birth, it is a new sign of growth and life and a renewal. I love it. Well said.

Laurent: Why do you think, I mean we already touched upon this before, but why do you think humans have been collecting stones, gems and jewellery since ancient times? Why do we do it? We don't need them, we don't eat them. Why is there this urge to do that? And do you think that passion will continue in future?

Helen: I'll answer the second part first because it's the easiest. Yes, certainly, without a shadow of a doubt. The first part, I cannot answer this. I ask myself this all the time. I think anybody who has collected minerals and gems looks at the collection at home and goes, God, why have I got so many boxes of these things? I don't know what to do with them. And it's simply that we love them. We're attracted to them. I mean, I said to you before, I'm a magpie. I love the spark and I love beauty. I also find that the discovery and the finding of them gives me an emotional connection. I have gems from Sri Lanka and Burma and places around the world I've been. It's not just that they're beautiful gems or sample minerals. They remind me of where I've be and I've discovered it myself. So I think that's that connection with discovery that we have, that as a human nature is very big in most people's minds. The feeling that you're the first person to find something for the first time. It's very easy to feel normal in the world, this discovery can sometimes make you feel quite special, but it can also make the earth feel special to you, and I think it grounds us again going back to that grounding concept. I think we will always search for gems, and i think the reason behind it goes back to emotional connection, discovery and excitement, this finding of something new.

Laurent: And believing in something precious, and beauty as well.

Helen: Yes, I wonder whether, do you think we need to believe in something precious or do you think we automatically do? Yes, I think so. I think the belief systems, in a way, they come later as a way for us to justify the natural reaction we have towards them. I'd love to know if everybody feels this way, I'd like to know how you feel. I feel an innate pull towards gemstones. If you put a really beautiful gem in my hand, I might actually slightly dribble. I'll get the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, my stomach will jump, I get an emotional reaction to these beautiful objects, even more so than maybe a two-dimensional painting. Because of the way we talked about the light interacting this object as a 3D thing, this thing that you can touch and hold and I think that is the other thing. We touch and we hold gems, we put them close to our skin. We physically dig for them in the ground, we then create them into jewels in our hands and then we give them to somebody and we wear them close on a finger or on our neck. That touching of the gems and the jewels I think also creates a bond between us and the minerals. And I think that makes it more precious because it's more personal.

Laurent: Beautifully said.

Helen: Will you always be searching for gems? Do you think it's something you'll always be doing?

Laurent: It'll never end.

Helen: It won't ever end. So don't you think it will continue like that for society and humanity in general?

Laurent: I think so, I think we have that need. And for other people that might be flowers, for other that might chasing sunsets or sunrises, but I think that we have this deep need to just, yeah, also have beautiful things around us. Find beauty. They don't necessarily need to be blingy.

Helen: No.

Laurent Or maybe bling is also something that doesn't necessarily spark over, I mean coming back to the beginning of our conversation and I think that awe and amazement and wonder and curiosity are things that we all need so that just gives us quite a bit of that.

Helen: Oh, I love that. I love very much. Well, I hope we both continue to search and to find beauty and bling and emotional connection and discovery in everything we do.

Laurent: Thank you, Helen.

Helen: Thank you Laurent, it's been gorgeous talking to you.

Laurent: Our guest was Helen Molesworth, Senior Curator of Jewellery at the V&A Museum, reflecting on why gems and jewels continue to shape human history. That was another Hidden Gem by SSEF, the Swiss Gemological Institute. Thank you for listening.

In this episode of the Hidden Gem, Laurent Cartier meets Enzo Liverino, fourth-generation coral specialist from Torre del Greco — the historic heart of the precious coral trade in Italy. The conversation moves through Enzo's childhood in his father's factory, his years buying rough coral in China, Taiwan and Japan, and the deep cultural reach of coral across the world — from Tibet and Cambodia to Morocco, Nigeria, and Native American traditions.

He reflects on the realities of coral fishing today, why he is pushing to change European regulations to allow ROV (robot) harvesting as is already done in Japan, and why he believes the future of the trade depends as much on knowledge transfer as on raw material. He also shares the story of acquiring the largest known angel skin necklace in the world, his collaboration with contemporary artist Jan Fabre, and the coral training programme he runs in Naples for young people with Down syndrome and autism, who graduate as Coral Ambassadors.

About the guest

Books by Enzo Liverino

Credits

Transcript

Enzo Liverino: We have limited time, so the time that we have, we have to use to let what we have done remain. The information, the culture, and this kind of heritage that will remain for century and century in a place where the people can appreciate the coral. 

Show Opener: SSEF presents the Hidden Gem Podcast, conversations with the world's leading people behind the journey of gems and jewels, from the source to the finished piece.

Laurent Cartier: Today on Hidden Gems, I'm speaking with Enzo Liverino, a fourth generation coral specialist from Torre del Greco in Italy, the historic heart of the precious coral trade. We met at a busy trade fair, so you may hear a little background noise, but that setting feels fitting for a conversation about a material that travels the world. We talk about how coral is sourced and worked, why varieties like angel skin and ox blood are so prized, and how the craft. And the market have changed over the last 50 years. And beyond jewellery, Enzo shares why Coral is ultimately a story about culture, knowledge and what we leave behind.

Laurent: So Enzo, thank you so much for being here with me. We've known each other for more than 10 years. I've learned a lot from you about coral and you are such a knowledgeable person about coral. So I'd love to learn more about how you began with coral and your family. When did you start touching coral and working with coral? Can you share a little bit about that?

Enzo: Yes, the passion that I have for the coral was naturally started when I was six, seven years old because I lived with my father, with my mother, in the place where there was also the factory. So in the morning of course I went to the school and in the afternoon I had to make some study at home, when I finish around five, six o'clock, nothing to do, just play a little bit of football with my cousin, then I went to the factory. That time the factory closed at nine, nine thirty in the evening, and because I was the son of the owner, the worker, they were happy to teach me. So everybody come, and so come here, I teach you. You see, this branch of colour, you have to read where to cut, because the colour will tell you from here you can make a cabochon, from here, you can make beads, or from here you can make a work of art. And this was very useful for me when, at the age of 20, My father asked me - I wasn't studying at the university- but my father said I'm sorry you you will study in China because we need the raw material. So I started to live in China, Taiwan and Japan because we needed a lot of raw material and of course in the beginning it was not easy for me. Because I felt the responsibility of buying at that time a million dollars of coral. But after I feel comfortable because what I have learned when I was a young boy came out. So I can easily understand from outside the dead coral pieces what can be inside. Even if the, I know that with the oxygen water, from a very dirty piece of coral, we can finally carve or make an angel skin figurine or angel skin necklace and so on.

Laurent: So corals have been one of the oldest gems collected by man.

Enzo: Yes.

Laurent: For several thousands of years in the Mediterranean. And they were traded around West Africa. They were traded all the way to Tibet, Marco Polo in the 13th century…

Enzo: I think so.

Laurent: …brought coral, precious coral, also to Tibet. What is the fascination, do you think, that humans have with coral?

Enzo: Well, if you design a map and in every place of the world you can put a picture with a lady wearing a traditional dress, there is always something with the coral. From Russia, Afghanistan, then Scandinavia, Holland, Poland. Russia is really say that we go little bit south Tibet, Nepal then even in Cambodia China China also the Emperor or the Queen they there are many image where they were the coral and then Japan Then on the other side of the world where we can find many Indian, Native American wearing coral. Inca also, there are some pictures in which they wear the coral. Then, in North Africa, they use a lot of coral in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia. And then if we go on the south, Nigeria, where the coral was very important for ruling in Africa, because the King of Benin has a dress all made by coral. And the weight is 14 kilo. And since a century, the chief of a group, to become a chief, they must have many corals on their body. And when they died, they were put in the land with the coral.

Laurent: So that's the thing is that coral is not just about the beauty and the colour, but there is some connection that people are symbols. So what is why do you think coral became so important or so attractive? What attracted you?

Enzo: Maybe the connection of the blood this can be one of the reasons because also in the mythology they talk they say that the coral come out from the head of Medusa going in the water becomes coral. Yes, then from this mythology it becomes more the idea of a coral connecting with the blood and with health, good health of course, and then also good luck. The symbol of good luck in Naples is the small horned cornetto.

Laurent: So you're a healthy and lucky man. You have you have so much coral in stock and you have had so much coral, beautiful coral passed through your hands.

Enzo: Yes, what I would like to, that is now time to give back all the information that I get from this trade and also helping the trade of course, helping the scuba divers to not risk their life, so I am trying to change the European regulation with the sustainable use of robots like they make in Japan. So then educate the people on coral is my goal. And thanks to people like Laurent Cartier, Laurent, you was the first who start to help me in this mission. Maybe you forgot, but… I remember when I come to you and I said let's make something to let people really understand the difference between the precious coral and the reef coral because there is so many misunderstandings.

Laurent: Yeah. Well, thank you very much. And we learned a lot from you as well.

Enzo: And we create also a website, sustainablecoral.org, that now the word sustainable is too much, you said, in the wrong way.

Laurent: But if we bring it back, I think what's also very interesting is all the knowledge you have about craftsmanship, what you were explaining about these cutters who were in your father's factory, who were showing you all this. Do you feel like, can you tell us a little bit about Torre del Greco, where you come from? Why is it that the coral trade is centred in Torre Del Greco? And how do you see the future of Torre de Greco. Are these skills being passed on?

Enzo: I think the coral will remain for many many years in the city of Torre del Greco. Torre del Greco people are very smart and we learn all the things that we know about coral. We learn from Genova and Livorno before the corals was worked there. Then we was lucky to have a French king and a French queen, Joachim Murat, his wife, Carolina Bonaparte. They loved the coral. They loved it a lot. And they made a special regulation, special law to help the coral people.

Laurent: To help the craftsmen or to help the fishermen or to help everyone trade?

Enzo: Everything, fishermen, factory, the teaching, they opened the first coral school in Torre del Greco. They opened the first factory. Before there was one [some] people that make the drill and other people who make the cutting. He got the idea. To call Marcia's man and open a factory as an example for the other Torre De Greco people. Now, fortunately for us, the coral remains in Torre del Greco was brought in as a cutting also in China, but the most popular coral in the world right now is a Mediterranean coral and in Torre del Greco we know very well how to work.

Laurent: So this means that up until, what is it, 1800 or 1812, it was exclusively Mediterranean coral that had been traded and fished for thousands of years. And then beds of corals were discovered in Asia, right? And this radically changed the industry?

Enzo: Yes, at the end of the last century, the beginning of last century…

Laurent: …19th century, yeah….

Enzo: …it was found in Japan and my grand-grandfather, he went there, it takes two, three months by boat, he went there and he found that there is this beautiful coral that at that time the German people they love. Because it was bigger than our coral, and there was the pink that also in, the French people, they like very much. And we are talking about the angel skin, of course, you know?

Laurent: Can you tell me the story about boké and the term boké?

Enzo: This is something that few people know, but my grandfather, of course, he was a dealer, he was business man. When he went to Japan to buy coral, Corallium elatius, we say cerasuolo, the colour of the cherries, and it's medium red. And just… Very rare, you can find in one tonne, one piece albino, anomalous core, that is light pink. So he know that the value is much higher, but the Japanese, they don't know. And when he start to buy, he make selection. All the light pieces he put on side. At the end, the Japanese was surprised. He said, Mr. Liverino, but what about this? At least this is no good. It's not red, and it's not white. It's pink. It's a stupid coral. And the stupid translating Japanese, they say the boké. So remain the word, boké.

Laurent: And Boké is one of the most valued varieties of precious coral today, right? Yes. Interesting. So how many generations has your family been in the coral trade?

Enzo: With my son, my two sons, Andrea and Basilio, they are the fifth generation, already prepare the sixth (laughs).

Laurent: Okay, and most people who are not very familiar with precious coral or coral think of coral as kind of, yeah, orange to red and that this is the colour, but there are many other varieties. I mean, we have thousands of coral species, but only a handful or two handfuls that are precious corals so that can be worked in jewellery. But can you tell us a little bit more about white varieties of coral, konojoi. Or the big discoveries of secundum that were in the 50s and 60s and all this material.

Enzo: Yeah, in that time I was in Taipei and the Taiwanese, they get news that there was coral in Midway Island.

Laurent: Which year was this?

Enzo: About 1970, 1970. And then they started very big boat. They went together with the Taiwanese and Japanese boat. They went there, and they start to fish. And they come back with each boat 300 tonnes of coral, each boat. Amazing.

Laurent: And this was very deep, right?

Enzo: Three, four hundred, five hundred metres, then after a few years they found also a location where they found coral at two thousand metres, two thousand metre deep. So this is interesting to understand that the coral, precious coral, is very strong. And now we are studying together with the scientific centre and the university. Why the precious coral is so strong, so powerful. Understanding this, we can help the coral reef. We can better understand because the precious corals so deep, cold water, no light, very strong wind, but still there and grow up very fast. All the studies that they have made on Mediterranean coral and other corals are helping the reef coral to not have too many problems or damage. Also on this I would like to say just a couple of words that we don't have to worry too much about the death of reef coral. Because it's something that is made by our God, or Buddha, or which we believe. Because it is natural that somebody died and then create other situation. The coral reef, he born and lives very fast. So it's natural that part of it died. And when we go in the nice beach, we have a fantastic sand, white sand, where we can enjoy with the family.

Laurent: But we still need the corals for the fish, for the whole ecosystem. So are you, I mean, I think there's a lot of scientific evidence showing that with warmer waters and more acidity, more CO2 in the water, it's getting more difficult for coral to form. Are you worried that in a hundred years time or two hundred years there won't be anymore precious coral?

Enzo: No, I don't know. I believe in God, so I know that he will control everything, he will make everything good.

Laurent: And you said you were spending time in China in your 20s, how was that experience? Do you speak Chinese?

Enzo: No, unfortunately, no.

Laurent: A suitcase full of cash and you bought rough material or how did it work?

Enzo: No, we went there and we have a credit because they don't know me, but I have since my grandfather and grand grandfather connection with the Japanese and the Japanese in that time they was accredited very well in Taiwan and in China. So I went there together with those Japanese that becomes my agent and when I buy they can I would say, give a credit on me and say, no problem, if Mr. Liverino don't pay, we will pay you. And this helped me a lot.

Laurent: And which part of China was this? Hainan Peninsula, or?

Enzo: No, Hainan, the Japanese are very smart because the Japanese, they went in Vietnam and they were not allowed. They fish the coral. When they come back in Japan, they say that was fished in Hainan. Just don't let the Taiwanese people know that that colour lives in Vietnam because konojoi was very precious. The price was very high. Still very high!

Laurent: This is white precious coral.

Enzo: Yes, because not so many and very useful for jewellery, precious jewellery, because it's uniform. The other coral that comes from Midway is pinkish And for a high jewellery brand, it doesn't work.

Laurent: They want something more homogenous?

Enzo: Yes, right, yes.

Laurent: I remember I visited Taiwan in 2016, you gave me some contacts and in the southeast I visited a jewellery shop of chili coral back then and it was over 7,000 square metres of coral jewellery. I said back then to them, I said, probably you're the biggest jewellery store in the world, you should be in the Guinness Book of World Records. Absolutely incredible. This made me understand that a lot of the market for precious coral is also found in Asia. How has this changed over the last decades or centuries? Is the market really in China?

Enzo: The market still remain in China and the fortune of Chii Lih coral was that in that time the policy between the government of Taiwan and China was more friendly, more open. So Taiwan can get many visitors coming from China that went to Taiwan to buy coral. That's the reason why Ming Li Chii Lih coral open a shop that the first was 700 square metre and she made another four shops and the last shop was a 2000 square metre so when i went there i can see outside waiting the tourists 200 bus 250 bus and then as always something happened the government the taiwanese government Chinese go and they start to disagree on many things. China doesn't give more visa to the Chinese to go to Taiwan.

Laurent: But what really impressed me was the fascination. So one thing is that this was tourism or shopping, but it means the Chinese people really have and had this deep cultural link.

Enzo: Yes, with coral.

Laurent: And when I visited Taipei 101 there was a necklace I think that was retailing for over a million US dollars, you know, Oxblood. I mean, incredible value.

Enzo: Yes, and at that time there was also an amazing necklace of Angel's skin. We were, and we are, very close with the owner, Ming Li, and during a congress that she organised, she bring all the guests one-on-one, and maybe there was not the Oxblood necklace where they was. A very big angel skin necklace. And she said, this is the biggest angel skin necklace existing in the world, 650 gramme. And then joking with the people, she said there is only one man that can appreciate this necklace and this is Enzo. And then I, just joking, said, thank you very much, Ming Li but, uh… Please, sell to me. So she was a little bit embarrassed. And looking at the people around, she opened the window. She take the necklace, and she gave it to me." She said, OK, it's yours. And I bought it.

Laurent: And you still have it today.

Enzo: Of course.

Laurent: So this is your personal collection and you have a museum in Torre del Greco, right?

Enzo: And regarding the museum, I'm very proud of it because… There are some other museums, but specific, on the Chinese art, or Japanese art. What the experts say that, when you come in my museum, it's completely new, starting from last century, siacca coral, used in Trapani to make artwork. Then Neapolitan jewellery, and then in old China and new Chinese pieces, Japan, modern art. And then the last section of the museum was opened a couple of years ago. To give the right space to the contemporary art. Because seven years ago, I started to work in collaboration with, I think it's the number one contemporary artist in the world, Jan Fabre. In that time, he made a piece of art using different material. Just for luck, he visited my museum and he was shocked and he said no Enzo. I already have some idea with concrete idea. We will do something really fantastic and we have done we made some pieces that was sold to a very rich collector, some museum and then together we decided also to donate something to Naples. And we donate four big pieces of art in Pio Monte della Misericordia. And another donation was a big frame of coral, two metre by two metre, with the symbol of San Gennaro. And this was a donation to the San Gennaro treasure.

Laurent: Is this you giving back or is it you expressing the fact that coral is let's say a work of art from nature and this is like an extension of that that, the work of Art of Nature deserves to collaborate with you know the human spirit or the human mind in creating more art or what is your your vision behind collaborating with artists and not just keeping coral for jewellery as beads or cabochons.

Enzo: But we have a limited time, so the time that we have, we have to use to let what we have done remain. And what we can leave is the information, the culture, and this kind of heritage that will remain for centuries and centuries. In a place where the people can appreciate the coral and what is the coral.

Laurent: And of all coral types and coral varieties, do you have a personal favourite?

Enzo: Let me say that the Mediterranean…

Laurent: or is that a trick question?

Enzo: No, I like Mediterranean because I'm very familiar, especially in the last 10 years it's become more easy to work with the Mediterranean as a trader. If I have to say that my favourite coral is Mediterranean, it's not because I like the light colour, so angel skin is my favourite.

Laurent: And you mentioned before Sciacca coral. Not everybody is familiar with that, but can you tell us a little bit about Sciacca and your relationship to Sciacca?

Enzo: Sciacca coral still belongs to Corallium rubrum, that is Mediterranean coral, and was a deposit of coral found, the history says that it was found in 1875, in my opinion was found much before that time, because… I know that Islam was very close to the coral for religion and also for the fishing. They invented the tools to fish the coral in the 10th century.

Laurent: In North Africa, right?

Enzo: In North Africa. And they used tools in a way that they don't lose the nets. And there was also a selective way to fish the coral, because they used broken nets. The broken nets, they take only the big branch, leaving the small one. So it was a selective and, of course, sustainable way. What happened in Sciacca? That the strong current coming from Sardinia, Tunisia, Algeria, and so on, the broken piece of small Sardinian coral was bringing it through Sicily. And in the Sicily channel, the current changed, stopped. So the coral that arrived there went down. On the sea base and remain there, century after century, and create a deposit high 30 metres. So you can imagine in thousands and thousands of years that there was this phenomenon. 30 metres, there are also many, many colours, because on the top was of course red. The more you go down. The coral when it dies becomes orange and become pink. There are some also line that was smoked by the volcano close to that area. The volcano that created the island, Ferdinandea Island, a volcano that is in Sicily, yes, a volcano that born in one year and after one year was destroyed by himself, but the lava hit that line and the coral on that line was smoked, black outside but still orange inside. And then the coral, there are so many things to say about the Sciacca coral. Since 20 years, I am writing notes. Finally, I met my best friend, Henry Ho, who lives in Bangkok. And he said, but finish your book! I will edit it for you. And now it's ready. In the next week, I will send to Henry. And we will print the book.

Laurent: We look forward to reading the book. So why do you think that it was discovered before 1875? They had the tools, but you think they brought it to market?

Enzo: No, no, because my father in 1960 he bought the biggest and oldest coral factory in Italy, company name was Costa, that closed in 1930 because of the war in Russia. No family remain so they donate everything to a small church near Genoa. The church, they have all this coral but they don't send nothing so they contact my father and my father pay a lot, but the priests say, Mr. Liverino, you buy the coral, of course. But you should also clean the house, the room, because I have to, as a church, I have to sell it because I need the money to repair the church. So my father was very happy to bring in Naples all the documentation that they have. During the pandemic, I studied all these documents together with my staff. And we found some document in which Sciacca, eh Costa company some piece of paper write by hand in which they bought coral from Arabic people before Sciacca coral before 1875. And there are some also invoices made in the United States or in Russia or in other parts of the world for a big amount. Of necklace of Sciacca coral. And the date of the invoice was before the 1875.

Laurent: And so how much of the Sciacca coral deposit is there left? I mean, that's what's so interesting. It's like if it's a coral mine or a coral deposit, right?

Enzo: It was a deposit, it was not a mine, is finished now. It's finished.

Laurent: Wow, that's interesting. And so what do you think are the best light conditions to see coral, to touch coral? If somebody has never worked with coral before or worn coral, what would you recommend?

Enzo: Now with the new technology the light doesn't make any damage to the colour because the colour doesn't love the hot temperature so mostly now the light are with the LED and this personal test if you like warm light or cold light depend on also sometimes the pieces from the carving and from the feeling that you want to give to the if it's an artist piece.

Laurent: For many centuries, Carl, there was big debate, is it animal or is it a plant? Any thoughts on that? Also, when you get the branches afterwards, obviously you never just use the rough material, you have to cut the rough material, you have shape it, and then you have polish it.

Enzo: No, there is, as you know very well, when you fish the coral, outside there is a skin in which the polyps live. After one year, that polyps die and they create the basis for another generation of polyps. And the soft part, when we fish the corals, in a couple of hours, will become dry. And If we keep in the deposit for a year, of course, because we never used to fish the coral and cut. We like to keep for a long time, and also because each area has different colour. So North Africa, the colour is more light, and French coast is more darker.

Laurent: Why do you think that is?

Enzo: There may be some small differences in the polyps, but it's a good question. Maybe we can ask the scientific centre in Monte Carlo to give an explanation. And also in Corallium rubrum there are the boké/bokeh. And they, in Monte Carlo, they have in cultivation for study. A branch of a coral. Very funny, also to understand what's happened in that albino piece of coral.

Laurent: Yeah, I saw one of those I visited in December in Monte Carlo, very interesting to see how they're growing.

Enzo: Fantastic people.

Laurent: What is so difficult and what is so rare about precious corals is that we can't just cultivate corals.

Enzo: We can cultivate for study.

Laurent: But not for commercial?

Enzo: But not commercially. But it doesn't need also because there is a lot of coral.

Laurent: You still have a lot of old stocks?

Enzo: I still have a lot of old stock and of course I have to think on the future. So we cannot expect only the coral fished by the scuba diver because it's too risky for them. We must work to change the law because it is a stupid law.

Laurent: So right now the law is that you have to dive, but it has to be below how many metres? 50? 100?

Enzo: No, now they are changing again, they make more stronger.

Laurent: For the Mediterranean?

Enzo: Because it was 50, now it's 80.

Laurent: It's tough diving under 80.

Enzo: And then you can reach 100 metres, 100 metres 120 metres, but no more. And you can be there for two, three, five minutes. And very risky. When we can make a very strong regulation on the fishing with the robot. And the robot, it's not me that say, I say that. The robot is. Really sustainable because the robot has two hands, of course the robot has a monitor video and if he found a small branch he doesn't care, he go more far to find a big branch. When he finds it with one arm he takes the big branch and with the other arm he just breaks the small branch that goes in the rock and creates other coral colonies.

Laurent: Yeah, colonies, yeah. Interesting. And this is how they do it also in Japan, right? They have a lot more experience.

Enzo: In Japan, the law is that the car can be fished only by ROV. Only by ROV. And in Europe, we have just the opposite. It's stupid.

Laurent: Well, let's see where that goes. But there are still a lot of old stocks left, like in Torre del Greco, people have. Yeah, so you are not worried for your, I guess, your son still has coral to work with. And you said that the next generation is already being prepared.

Enzo: We have to think about the next generation. Of course, I cannot think that if they start to fish coral with the robot, the robot will fish a lot of coral. No, it's not true because they can fish only six months per year. There are some, another three months of the six in which the weather is no good, and it takes time, takes a lot of time. They should have a licence, they should have big boat. It's not something easy like they imagine. You just take a small boat with the rope and then you go to take a coral. It's not like this.

Laurent: And where's the demand for precious coral today, in terms of markets and continents? How has that evolved over the last 50 years?

Enzo: Well, as always, there are ups and downs on the market and there are some countries that start to use more and then after a couple of years they remain stable and grow up in other markets. So we went from Saudi Arabia market up to Russia, then come back to Germany, United States. Until a couple of years ago the United States was the first market for us. Let's say that now the country with the French influence they are the one that give us a work and mostly of the bigger brand the famous brand they are French.

Laurent: And they also used a lot of coral during Art Deco, during the 50s, 60s, 70s also. There's a lot the big brands worked so much with coral that they're revisiting some of the…

Enzo: Really right, right, yes.

Laurent: We have this cultural heritage of having corals, right? And the… Same for Italian brands.

Enzo: There are not so many creative designers or creative people. There are some, but not so much like before. So they are studying the old collections to try to get some idea from what they have made before.

Laurent: And do you cut the coral yourself, or do you polish yourself?

Enzo: Yes, I like, I like to do it.

Laurent: And you also like to paint, right?

Enzo: I like to paint.

Laurent: What do you paint?

Enzo: In the beginning, I started to paint when I was really very young, classic things, a vessel or a house and so on. Then, I start to be more interested in, let's say, contemporary art. And I understand that I won't use coral. In the beginning, I used coral powder. The one that remains when you finish to work, to cut, it remains like a powder.

Laurent: But as a paint pigment, or you use the powder as colour? No, I use it.

Enzo: I glue on the painting, on some part of the painting. But then I use the same technique used by Jan Fabre. So some, let's say, paintings of mine, they are in 3D. And there is a face. And the part of face is covered by a branch, coral, a small cabochon. And so on. Also using a different colour. So mostly the Sciacca colour helped me a lot because the Sciacca has maybe 40, 50 different nuances of colour.

Laurent: That's incredible diversity that you can do with it. And then with your grandchildren, because you said you're preparing the next generation, what are you teaching them about, coral? How are you getting them interested?

Enzo: Well, some of course are more interested than others, but mostly they want to imitate me, they want to make something that I do. So when they come to me, they see that I make paintings, they want to paint together. So I prepare four tablet, oh five, because I am one of them. And they say, what do we want to do, a house or this or that? And we will do together five different things. The oldest one, of course, now they are more interested in making some concrete things and something that is more close to my heart, let's say art. And then I want to also say that we are cooperating now with an organisation in Naples who has 15 young people who limited our, I don't know if it's in English, autistic. Autistic or syndrome down.

Laurent: Yes, Down syndrome.

Enzo: And for one year, we teach them everything about coral. So we start in January, three months, the theory, with using Keynotes, the image. The coral is this. Then it was fished like this. Using the technique of Rui [Galopim de Carvalho], for instance, okay, let's go down to see the coral in the water and the image is completely black. Why? There is no image. Because we forgot to switch on the light… Switch the light and you can see the coral in the sea and they feel enthusiastic. So moving them, now they have a passion and especially when they understand that I want to teach them how to do some object using a poor quality of coral, but they have made one, we start with the frame, small frame, and the side of the frame they glue a piece of coral. Someone make better, someone make less. But really, yeah, it's really inspiring. My technique, I am teaching to them also even what to put inside because inside you can of course you put a picture but you can even put your design, your sketch that you will cover with shell, with some small pieces broken of turquoise or with other material just to create.

Enzo: You know, my brother-in-law has Down syndrome and he loves to paint, so maybe I come to Torre del Greco and you teach us both together.

Enzo: Yes, my sister has down's syndrome, maybe for this reason I like to teach that. And one thing is that I don't like to communicate these things because I made it because I like it to do. I don't want to let people know that I do this because I do it because I like to do.

Enzo: Yeah, you do it from the heart.

Enzo: Right. And at the end of the year, we will make an exhibition. They will sell what they have made. And the money will go there.

Laurent: So when will this be?

Enzo: At the end of the year.

Laurent: at the end of this year 2025.

Enzo: And then we will give to them a diploma. They will become a Coral Ambassador. With the mayor of the city of Torre del Greco. Italian flag, make a nice ceremony.

Laurent: That's really inspiring. That's a great way of giving back. And maybe some of the pieces will then also end up in your museum, right?

Enzo: Why not?

Laurent: Well, I look forward. Thank you very much, Enzo, for this conversation. Thank you, Laurent. I realise that I need to come back to Torre del Greco. Of course. To see the museum and come and visit you again and visit the workshops and learn more. So thank you very for your time and sharing all your expertise and your wisdom.

Laurent: Thank you. Thank you very much, Laurent.

Laurent: Our guest Enzo Liverino reminding us that what we leave behind is knowledge and culture. That was another Hidden Gem by SSEF, the Swiss Gemological Institute. Thank you for listening.

In this episode of Hidden Gems, Laurent Cartier meets Joanna Hardy at Goldsmiths' Hall in London during Goldsmiths' Fair, where Joanna serves as Third Warden of the Goldsmiths' Company. Joanna traces her path into the trade from a childhood encounter with her godmother Margaret Biggs — the first woman to pass the FGA with distinction in 1923 — and her sister Mary's abstract paintings of minerals, to learning the bench at fourteen at Bedales school, to a Saturday job in Hatton Garden rummaging through Mr Holt's stones for fragments she could afford on a teenager's budget.

The conversation moves through her years sorting rough at De Beers' CSO in Charterhouse Street in the 1980s, her move to Antwerp as an assistant polished diamond dealer, and the male-dominated world of Ramat Gan — where she learned, the hard way, that diligence and knowledge were the only way through. Joanna recounts the Garrard and Mappin & Webb order that changed her career, her later move into the auction world at Phillips, and the shift from dealer relationships to the emotional reality of valuing for the public on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, where she's now been a regular for twenty years.

About the guest

Website: https://www.joannahardy.com/

Credits

Transcript

Joanna Hardy: Gems have their own stories, but it is the journey through the hands of humans where the stories start, continue, and will continue. And we are just, humans are just custodians of these minerals that the earth provides.

Show Opener: SSEF presents the Hidden Gem Podcast, conversations with the world's leading people behind the journey of gems and jewels from the source to the finished piece.

Laurent: Cartier: Today on Hidden Gems, I'm speaking with Joanna Hardy, one of Britain's best-known jewellery experts and a familiar face from the BBC's Antiques Roadshow. We met in London at Goldsmiths Hall during Goldsmith's Fair. Joanna trained as a goldsmith and began her career in diamonds, but her true passion lies in coloured gemstones, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and the remarkable stories they carry across cultures and generations. In this episode, we talk about curiosity, craft, Trust in the trade and why for Joanna understanding a gemstone means going all the way back to its source.

Laurent: Joanna Hardy, you're one of Britain's best known jewellery experts, BBC Antiques Roadshow for example. You trained as a goldsmith, you worked as a rough diamond valuer for De Beers and later you were a senior specialist at auction houses and today you run an independent consultancy and you teach and publish widely. Now, you've written incredible books and lectures all over the world, Joanna. Why is it that storytelling is so important in gems and fine jewellery?

Joanna: Well, I think it is, first of all, it's very nice to see you, Laurent. Thank you for inviting me to talk.

Laurent: And we are here in the Goldsmith's Hall.

Joanna: We are here in the Goldsmiths Hall which at the moment which is in the City of London by St Paul's Cathedral and it's like my second home at the moment as I'm third warden of the Goldsmiths Company. So going to your question, your question well gems and people you've got to have the gems and the people the two are interlinked so you know gems have their own stories but it is the journey through the hands of humans where the stories start, continue and will continue and we are just, humans are just custodians of these minerals that the earth provides. Which in fact I was reading the of the day that… You know, that diamonds, correct me if I'm wrong, can be formed in space, but wood can't, you know? So suddenly, or pearls, or I don't think can be found in space. Not yet, we haven't found any, or have we found pearls in space?

Laurent: Not that I know of yet, I mean, but in vitro pearls may come in the very near future. So I don't, you know, don't want to exclude any.

Joanna: No, but I think we still don't fully appreciate the marvels of these materials that the Earth provides. And there is that fascination and I have always been fascinated and it's fascinating to see how people react to them too, good and bad.

Laurent: And in very different ways, I imagine.

Joanna: Oh gosh, I mean yes, I think vanity and greed and gemstones and metals seem to go a bit hand-in-hand. But you know, it's not all about the money and I think we must discount that. Because that side is very much a modern, a modern thinking behind gemstones and materials like that, because they weren't sort of money-fied.

Laurent: And that's one of the reasons actually for doing this podcast series and speaking to all these different people is that to go beyond that money is that there is passion, there's enthusiasm. You've been interested in gems and jewellery for many decades. What got you into this or what, what, what keeps you kind of motivated and curious and still looking at different gems.

Joanna: I think, well I have an awful lot to thank the industry for and gemstones for because when I was a young kid my godmother was the first woman to pass her FGA with distinction in 1932 and she was Margaret Biggs and she and her sister they were two spinsters that lived in a Georgian house in Farnham in Surrey, and they had a jewellery shop, Biggs of Farnam. And in fact, there was also Biggs' of Maidenhead. And she was my godmother. She was quite a bit older. I mean, she was almost like a mother to my father. But I remember going there for afternoon tea sometimes with my parents. And… She she was quite a formidable lady but very very kind and my parents held her in very high regard in terms of her integrity and she she always was very smartly dressed and she would have big gold bracelets and big gold chains and she had in her drawing room at home these wonderful Georgian glass vitrines full of minerals just all the sort of like a cabinet of curiosity but beautifully clean you know it wasn't a wasn't hiddledy-piggledy. And her sister Mary used to paint those minerals like abstract paintings so she was almost sort of ahead of her time in terms of It's rather like, you know, we looking through a microscope at… inclusions in gemstones and you can see abstract, you know, abstract work, she did that with oil paintings and so you had these vibrant oil paintings around this Georgian house of minerals and then you had the specimens in the cabinets, in these Georgian cabinets. And for a young girl, I mean, that was just mesmerising and I, but I didn't really understand what was going on but I think it was osmosis that was a that possibly sowed a seed without me knowing and so that was my sort of first introduction to that and I suppose you know as a child like most most children you know if you're on the beach or in the woods you like picking up small things and I remember having at home a lot of -I don't know children's science kits where you'd have these sort of very rudimentary microscopes where you can put your acorn underneath or something and look at it. So then when I went to Beedales, I went to be Beedales which is a school in Petersfield in Hampshire, which very much focused on the craft and the craft was seen as the same importance as sciences and music. So I, and at 14 we had jewellery classes, so I just thought, well this is, you know, I just felt like the school was like a holiday. So I made, started to make jewellery when I was 14, and I loved it, and I absolutely loved it. And of course it was, we were using all kinds of materials, I mean from 14 to 16 to 17. Yeah, I just, that's what I continued doing. And rather than being in a chemistry lab, at the time, I would spend my time in the workshops. And I've still got those pieces that I made out of the perspex and gilding metal. And there was some silver and acrylic and, and it was very abstract. And in fact, when I look back, I think, oh, that was quite imaginative for a- 15, 16 year olds. I didn't know much about the world of jewellery at all. So it was coming from a young person's imagination really and I had a great teacher. It's always about the teachers, isn't it? And you know, I wasn't focusing on what I probably should be doing academically and but he allowed, you know the school allowed the opportunity to work weekends there because it was a boarding school. So I would work weekends there and in the workshop, making, creating jewellery.

Laurent: Wow. And here you are many, many years later, Goldsmiths Hall. It's Goldsmith's Fair in London. Yes. We've got emerging young new designers or established designers that are being exhibited here. And you are supporting the future of the British kind of jewellery scene.

Joanna: Yes, it's sort of a…

Laurent: Who would have thought? I tell you. Dare I say.

Joanna: Who would have thought? I think there was, I think the teacher at the time said, what are we going to do with Joey? Because I was a bit sort of, you know, didn't follow normal procedures in school. And so when I, you now, when I came up to Sir John Cass College, I did a foundation course at Farnham and then I went to Sir John Cass College. So, and I, but then the kind of the creativity He went out the window because it was all about… Making bar brooches and claw settings and obviously learning the trade. And I just, that didn't really, I wasn't very good at it, quite honestly, but it was fantastic to understand the complexities and the skill needed to make a good quality piece of jewellery, which has held me in good stead for either valuing or for when, you know, now, as you say, we're here at the Goldsmiths company and the whole, and we've got… Over two weeks, like 170 silversmiths and goldsmiths, all who have made their own pieces, designed and made their pieces. And I have that complete sort of understanding and synergy with them because I know what it's like and really appreciate the creativity and being able to express yourself. To be able to express yourself with any form of art, I think, is wonderful. And I do sort of miss that. I would like to have, well, I wasn't any good at it, but I appreciate the value in it.

Laurent: Do you still have a bench at home?

Joanna: No, that's long gone. Long gone. No, no, no.

Laurent: Did you ever think of getting into or have you tried cutting gemstones as well, given that you're…

Joanna: Yeah, no, I haven't. I haven't done that. I think because then, you know, I then was working in Hatton Garden as a Saturday girl while I was at Sir John Cass College and selling sort of rubbish, I'm afraid. It was just, it was gold chains with a bolt ring on the end that was about it but though but I was there was Holts across the road and Mr. Holt I remember going into that shop in my lunch break and just going through all these, he would just let me rummage through all these stones and I maybe might be able to afford an amethyst for 5p or something. In fact I've got the stone collection that I started to collect, I've still got it, when I was, well I was about 17, 18 years old. I couldn't afford anything at all, but just a tiny bit of fragment of coral or something was just so exciting. But I left school with very few qualifications, so if any, well no, I had a couple. So that's when I just thought, when I went into Mr. Holt's shop, I just though, my goodness, I'd love to learn more about this. And that was the gemology side.

Laurent: So how did you end up then afterwards with the De Beers and then the auction houses?

Joanna: So I did my gemology in the evenings at Aldgate East, and then what did I do? Oh, yes, well, I left college and then I worked full-time in Hatton Garden. And I was walking down Leather Lane, the fruit and veg market, which was a fruit and vegetable market at the time. This was in the 80s. And I just thought there's got to be more than just selling gold chains in Hatton Garden and I remember, and somebody, I was talking to somebody in, down the other lane, and they said, well, De Beers are looking for people. And I'd never heard of De Beers. I was, who, who are they? And they said well, it's the mining company, of course, you know, there weren't any shops or anything, like there are now. And I had, I had I think I'd just started my diamond, no, I'd had just finished my diamond diploma, so, so, so I went and applied at the CSO to be a valuer and sorter for De Beers in Charterhouse Street in the 80s. And gosh, that was, that was quite a thing. I didn't know what I was getting into at all. But it was, but anyway, I sort of got the job. Then it was sort of, it was a bit of a learning curve, a bit of a disappointment, bit of a shocking thing in that, you know, suddenly I was in the Bort department. I just thought I'd learn all about these gems in my gemology and now I'm sitting in front of piles of Bort and near gem and I just thought, oh my goodness, but they train you for about six months beforehand.

Laurent: You were sorting quality and then preparing parcels for sightholders who would then bid on

Joanna: Yes yeah so it was it was very much I mean you know the 12 000 categories or whatever there was in rough diamonds so they you did have a training and the training was good because you had to make sure that you didn't get eye strain so you had those you know visors that you would put down whatever the magnifying visors and the desks were very high so that made you sit up so that you didn't slouch because you were really a factory. You were just going, you know, white one, brown one, not quite like that, but almost like that. And they also showed you their new super duper security cameras. I remember that. I remember going down into the security and they just showed you what they can see.

Laurent: So.

Joanna: So if you had any thoughts of doing anything, they would see first, but it was still pretty advanced stuff. It was amazing. And there were no corners on each of the floors, everything was curved, so if you dropped a crystal, it wouldn't get stuck in a corner, so all these things. So, I mean, it was an incredible time because… It was, it was like big brother. I mean, you didn't have to buy your chicken for Christmas. They'd give you one of those or a capon, or everybody, all the staff would be queuing around the building before Christmas to get your turkey or a capon, depending on how long you had been there. If you were a senior, you got a turkey, and if you were junior you got a capon.

Laurent: These were the old days where they still dominated quite a large share of the international diamond trade. Oh, the whole thing?

Joanna: Absolutely. We weren't allowed to go to America because it was a monopoly that they had at the time which if you were in America it was a criminal offense but it wasn't over in the UK. And you had amazing insurance, you had boxes at Covent Garden, Royal Opera House. And no one went to them, so myself and a girlfriend who at the time who also worked at De Beers, we went to all these amazing shows at the Albert Hall and Covent Garden in these boxes. And I think we had to pay like two pounds or something for a ticket. So we went and saw everything in London. It was just, it was amazing. You could live and breathe De Beers. You didn't need to go… Anywhere else.

Laurent: Did you get the travel or all the goods just came to London?

Joanna: No, you see, this is what I thought. I thought, oh, I can go off to Africa in my khaki outfit, you know, I just thought, because that really appealed. Well, I was so far from that. I mean, I was a woman to start with, so I wasn't getting anywhere as a woman.

Laurent: Well, you did that later on in going to Zambia, Mozambique.

Joanna: Oh, you must. Oh you're much much later my gosh yes it's like 40 years later but at the time so that's why I wanted to go to yeah I wanted to go to Africa I wanted to you know go on adventures but that clearly wasn't going to happen at De Beers and so when I saw in the retail jeweller an advert to be a polished diamond an assistant polished diamond dealer in Antwerp, I thought, well, I'll apply. I got the job. I don't know. I mean, it was actually, it's with J.C. Jinder. And I just thought, and I was like 22, 23, I think now. And he was very clever, in fact, to hire me because, I mean I'm not Jewish, and I was a young girl and he was a diamond merchant, meaning then that they would buy from sightholders that had, that through brokers and with polished goods, and you'd be selling to wholesalers, then the wholesalers would make the jewellery and sell to retailers. So there was a very methodical line of track of business, you know, not like now, and it's completely, completely changed. But I think because I had worked for De Beers he thought well you know she's been in the diamond world that's that's a great sort of name to have behind you and so I got the job and so I went in my my Ford Fiesta with my futon that I had bought and I drove over to Antwerp and I found this flat in Provinciestraat by the zoo. And that was, I remember thinking, oh my goodness, I knew absolutely no one. Went into the office, I was the assistant to Nico Van Gendt, who had been running the Antwerp office for years and years. And the first day he showed me a parcel of diamonds, melee, and he told me to sort them into various categories. I had absolutely no clue what he was talking about. And he went off and he came back 20 minutes later and he said, have they sent me someone that doesn't know anything? I just went, yes. And he said well, you're here now, I better train you. So he trained me and, but you see, what was interesting was that, so my patch was Scandinavia and London, and I got commission. So I had a basic pay, but I had commission. And if ever there was an incentive that was an incentive for me. And I only lived in Antwerp for a year, but I would travel with Henry Jinder to Ramat Gan three times a year. Buying we're buying in the obviously in the well in the ship's truck we had our offices so the brokers would come to us but I very soon realised that you know sometimes they would be shouting down the phone and we'd given a bad offer and you know there would be no one on the other end of the phone anyway that's all a bit all big game.

Laurent: It's a very male world as well, a very masculine world.

Joanna: Very very masculine I mean when I walked out on the street and I would at first I'd say hello to the brokers they'd just almost ignore me so and offices in Israel in Ramat Gan there were some I couldn't walk into so it it was yeah it was a very very um male world and the people that I was selling to were all male I didn't meet any women at all the only women I would meet if brokers they had died and their widows would take over the business but that would be the only time and that I would meet another woman in the business. So it was it was very tough and in fact and in fact it was yeah but Henry was Henry Jinder I think he he thought well how going to get my goods in front of buyers when there's a whole you know, a whole line of guys, you know Orthodox Jews and, you know, just all sitting there. So he thought, I'll have a young girl. And it worked because I would be asked into an office first, I think from an entertainment point of view, as far as they were concerned, they just thought, well, she knows nothing. It's just what is she doing here? And of course, there's no mobile phones as you know, nothing like that. And And I very, and they were very rude most of the time. And I just thought, it was all survival, I'd left home at 16 and I just, this was my job and I'm gonna be good at my job. And I knew that through knowledge, that in the end, knowledge was power. And so, yeah, and then in the end those same people that were rude to me gave me the best business ever, because also I was so diligent in, I would, you know, they'd ask for, there was, um, you'd ask for I don't know, 10 carats or four per carat or whatever, and I would measure the tables, I mean I would literally, you wouldn't have any fish eyes in any of it, you would, I'd make sure that if the stones were matching, ten pointers, 2.95 to 3.01, you know, I would absolutely measure the diameters, I'd measure the tables and so they liked that because I went that extra bit.

Laurent: I'm sure you get that question often from students or people who are looking, young people who are trying to get into the trade or getting into getting into gemology is just try and get as much as experience as you can and be as diligent as you can. I mean this is a great example of how you were curious and you tried to collect all these different kinds of experience to bring your career to where it is now.

Joanna: Yes, I think that's, I mean I'm just a curious person, so I wasn't happy, you know, I'm not happy to write a book on sapphires without going to see where sapphires come from, and emeralds, rubies, everything like that, but also I want to see what really is going on, you know. I don't want to hear from other people, I want to see it for myself. I love travelling, you know, I don't mind roughing it, I love camping. I ride motorbikes, so for me, that's a privilege to be able to go off to countries where most people wouldn't go to A, and B, see what I see and the people I meet. Because it's certainly off the beaten track and off the tourist track, and that I love. I feel very lucky to have done that. So I do say to people, they always say what… Get into the trade you know well there's so many different aspects of the trade and then I feel it's not until you've worked in all very aspects a) do you know which bit you like and which bit you don't like and that takes time to understand it you know the auction world oh my goodness that was a whole whole other world.

Laurent: So you came back to London, then, to work at an auction house?

Joanna: So that was yes if after after Antwerp and then I came back and I was back in the office the Jinder office in London. But I will tell you one I'll just tell you one story which um there was so there it was Garrard and Mappin & Webb they owned Mappin & Webb at the time as well and the guy that I that was the buyer for them he he had put a tender out to, you know, he was going to… Diamonds to fill all these three, you know, three stone rings, five stone rings, ear studs, I mean it was a huge order, it's a massive order for the whole of Mappin & Webb and this time you know this guy who had been rude to me originally but now wasn't and we had a we had a good working relationship and he said well in the end he said I'll give you this order. The order was enormous, absolutely enormous. And I thought, oh my goodness, I remember rushing back to Henry Jinder and I said, look at, this is, this is the order that we've got. And he went, right. But there was no upfront money. We had to fund it. I mean, it was a lot of money. It was, oh gosh. So we, so Henry got very much involved and of course he only wanted, you know, 10 mils, 10 pointers, he would only want sort of three millimetres and absolutely exact. So you're also having a big order but you were having to parcel pick. And then, you know, to parcel pick and get a competitive price per carat was very, very difficult, almost impossible, because everyone wants those, you, they don't want those. So you select out of the best stones, exactly. So you'd have parcels and say, say you've got 20 carats of melee and then you'd say, well, okay, I'll buy this but I'll have a 50% rejection. And you would do the rejection and then parcel it up and wrap it up and sign it and seal it and see if, and say well, I only pay this price and I'll only pay so many days. And there was all that going on. So we were doing that with all different sizes and we were going from Antwerp, we were going to Israel. It took about six months to get this parcel together, this order together and I used to always just go on the tube but I lashed out and went by cab this time because I had the whole entire order in this briefcase. All, I had measured all the tables, all the diametres of the stones everything was a VS VS 1 FG and I remember going up, this was when Garrard were on the corner of Regent Street, and it had a telephone box outside the entrance, the tradesmen of course would go the back entrance, and I went up to see the guy, and I just put this briefcase down on the table, and I just sat down and he just turned the briefcase round, he opened it, just grabbed one brifka out of it, diamond paper out of it where I had… Put the pairs of stones, and he louped two diamonds, then he put that back, got another brifka, and there was hundreds of brifkas in there, so I mean he just sort of like randomly just picked out two brifkas and looked at the stones through his loupe, and then he put them back, he shut the suitcase, locked it, and he said, invoice the lot. Oh my goodness I can't tell you I was that that was just amazing it was like it was better than winning the lottery because I had put so much time and effort into it too and Henry Jinder had too and yet we we had the biggest the biggest deal ever and I just thought you know it was this guy at the very beginning a few years ago had been really dismissive of me had given me the best order. And it was just brilliant.

Laurent: So how important are trust and integrity in this trade?

Joanna: Oh, it's huge.

Laurent: It's incredible, right? Compared to other businesses or industries. Absolutely.

Laurent: And it's been around for centuries, it still fascinates me today.

Joanna: No money had been exchanged, no invoice. I hadn't given him an invoice. I hadn't given him anything.

Laurent: So he didn't even know what it would cost him.

Joanna: No, well, I think he'd roughly, but I mean, I hadn't produced the invoice because I didn't know if he wanted them. Goodness knows what we would have done if he'd said, oh, I don't like this, or he starts picking at it. And so that's what I just really wanted to make sure that he didn't start. Saying well that's good, that's not good. I didn't want him to find a fault and he didn't find a fault and it was for the whole chain of Mappin & Webb. I mean it was just and the commission that I got well I was just I think I paid for some horse riding in Hyde Park. I said oh that's because it was quite expensive horse riding in Hyde Park and I went to New York as well because I just thought oh this is it was amazing. That was amazing. So I will always, yeah. That was a great lesson. That was great lesson as well. And I've got so much to thank the guy at Garrard at the time, you know, even now to this day. He showed me what, you know hard work and it wasn't about male or female. It was just being good at your job. And that's what people want at the end of the day. They want your trust, they want your honesty, reputation, and be good.

Laurent: And it takes years to build that up.

Joanna: And it takes years to build it up, exactly. So he had given me the impetus to carry on, because I was still very young in my career. I mean, I'd have absolutely no idea what I would be doing next month, let alone where I'm sitting now. It didn't even occur to me where my career was going to go or take me. And it was then that, and then afterwards, someone phoned me up and said, Phillips the auctioneers which are now Bonhams so this they were looking for a diamond expert at the time I don't like the word expert specialist and so I and I just and I remember thinking auction what is auction and I thought antique jewellery I went oh my goodness I know absolutely nothing about antique jewellery then as for coloured gemstones I hadn't seen a sapphire or anything with colour since I did my gemology because I'd been in the diamond, you know, rough and polished for a good five years. So I just thought, wow. So, I remember I was still living in Antwerp and I so I went would go before the interview to Phillips. I just thought, well I better go to the V&A and the British Museum to the jewellery galleries. And I remember sitting there weekends trying to work out what all these styles and periods were called because I had absolutely no art training at all. So I hadn't got a clue about Art Nouveau or any of this. I had no idea.

Laurent: And now you're on the BBC on what, a weekly or a monthly basis, an antiques road show.

Joanna: Valuing it.

Laurent: People show you a piece and you don't only need to identify it, you also need to put a value on it.

Joanna: Yes, and you know that it's real and it's true.

Laurent: How is that? How is it engaging with the trade compared to engaging with a…

Joanna: Oh the public.

Laurent: The public.

Joanna: Yeah I think that was a good question because having been with the trade and all the diamond dealers at the time who were buying from auction because at that time in the 80s everyone was re-cutting old cuts so you had few of the diamond guys with their microscopes and come with their microscopes when they were viewing the sale of the auctions. And all they were going to do was pop out the big stones and recut them into modern brilliants. But because they knew that I had spent you know a number of years grading polished and rough, so I was inundated with with dealers wanting my um grades on you know they were just phoning me give me a list and just say just what are your thoughts on um on these stones so that's what I did. So I was very comfortable with them because I was used to dealers, that's all who I had worked with. So general public, oh my goodness, oh, my goodness. That was a whole other world because suddenly I realised that it was 70% counselling and 30% knowledge.

Laurent: It's the expectations of people.

Joanna: Oh my gosh, yes, well, you're dealing with emotions. I wasn't really dealing with people's emotions other than, you know, you got a deal, didn't get a deal. I mean, that's about it, of the emotions. But when you suddenly, my mother's left me this, and my husband's done that, and oh my gosh. I just, it blew me away. I just thought. And I thought, they've got an estimate of 3,000 to 5,000, I mean like, it doesn't sell, it doesn't sell. I just thought, what is this business, you know, and you put a low reserve on it, and I thought no one's putting their money where their mouth is, and I just thought, well that makes it a bit easy, you know, and so it was, I thought it was a bizarre world. And then finding out that people had really wanted, I'd never heard of Sotheby's or Christie's. I had no idea who these people were or these firms were. And people went to art school and universities and had art history degrees, you know, because they wanted to work in auction houses. I just, it was just a complete different world. And it, but Phillips, working for Phillips, which was great because it was a great learning curve and it wasn't too scary. A place so you could cut your teeth on it and it was a very fun place you know in fact people on the Antiques Roadshow now I've been doing the Antique Roadshow for 20 years now and I'm and I am working with people that I worked with back in those days and this is like we're nearly talking 40 years ago you know 35 years ago at Phillips so there was a huge camaraderie has grown from that as well. As well as some of the diamond dealers, I still work with them, or they phone me up out of the blue and there's that instant connection. And that's the same with Phillips, it was great. Phillips was great fun.

Laurent: It's changed so much over the years, hasn't it? Because this was a period of time with no mobile phones, people weren't taking 360 degree videos of diamonds to figure out, you know, this or that, how can it be recut? It was so different. How do you see this evolution? People are WhatsApping videos of million dollar stones.

Joanna: Yeah gosh it's changed it's changed it's changed so much What would I say? I think what, I think what really has changed is that your world was quite small. It didn't matter where you travelled, you'd bump into the same people. It still is today, but with the internet and with the amount of people that are talking about influences and trends and goodness knows all of that stuff. It really, you've lost that person, that sort of closeness, that kind of one-to-one with someone, that kind relationship that you've built up over the years. Now everything seems so transient. And with that, I think it's very difficult for people in that sense. But I think relationships are even more important today. Because there's so many pitfalls if you don't know who you're dealing with, and the trust.

Laurent: We talked about this before this element of trust is so important and it's going to continue to be important because there's also so much money involved and that is a human-to-human connection in the end. You can go as virtual as you want on these things but in the end that's kind of what this business is about so

Joanna: Yeah, no, it is. And it's, yes, I mean, you know, the relationships, I work now by myself and I have been doing for the last 20 years now. It's nearly 20 years since I left Sotheby's, which is just extraordinary. But I don't feel I'm working alone because I have my colleagues almost, I feel like I just pick up the phone or I WhatsApp them or text them and we speak quickly and there is still that camaraderie and trust. And I think maybe because it is so wide, the web and the internet and it's even more important to have that close connection with someone. I think the trust is even more, even more important. I mean, it's always important. But, but it is, I value, I really value the people that I deal with, really value them. I value their friendship and I value that trust. And you know, it still, you know if someone steps out of line - well, that's it, you're never back in again. I mean, there's a couple of people I walk across the road and I'll cross over the other side and I will never entertain them.

Laurent: Well, it still is a small world, so if there's issues with your reputation, news travels fast.

Joanna: Yeah, it does. It still does, yes.

Laurent: And coming back just to the general public and you're also involved with Gem-A and the Goldsmiths company etc. Education is very important. How educated is the general public? Some of the questions that you get when you do this Antiques Roadshow, are people, where are they getting their information? Are you sometimes confronted with people thinking that they've got a million dollar piece and then it's just worth, you know, five pounds or… What is the public's perception of jewellery or gemstones?

Joanna: Well, I think, uh… I think, well, first of all, I think insurance valuations in the past have always been so different to what they could sell a piece for and so there is always that big discrepancy which needs explaining and sometimes you can explain it and sometimes you can't explain it because it shouldn't be that wide and that you know that different from the sale price to the insurance replacement value and I think you know the marketing is quite powerful and I am amazed how the public how marketing can stick in a person's mind and I suppose you know diamonds is an example of how you know De Beers you know Diamonds are a girl's best friend and diamonds are forever and… You know, you spend two months salary on a diamond or, you know all of these people can still recite now because of the power of advertising, the power of marketing. And De Beers will always go down in history as the best marketeers, I should think. And yeah, I mean, you know we're sitting at the Goldsmiths Hall, It's celebrating its 700th year in 2027, it had its charter in 1327 when it hallmarked goods to make sure that gold and silver that was bought and sold within the city walls of London were of a standard that was consistent to protect the consumer and to protect the buyers. And the dealers and that was first so that you could trade within the city walls of London and then it expanded obviously to Great Britain and that protection is still there to this day and is the hallmarking the assaying your metal is there to protect the consumer And yet… And for British hallmarks, there is a series of marks, and each one represents the finest of the gold or the finest or the silver, the year that it was hallmarked, which assay office hallmarked it, and the maker's mark of the person who made it or the person retailed it. So there's quite a story, a significant story in those marks on your piece. And people will still, they don't really understand it. And yet it's been going on for 700 years. And it is your best form of protection for the consumer. And the British Hallmarking Council commissioned a survey which was done to see how much was sold on the internet that said it was nine carat or 18 carat and it wasn't. And it was like 40%. It's a very, very high.

Laurent: I imagine that for gems it wouldn't be all too different.

Joanna: I should think not. If not more so. So I am amazed that people think 18CT or 18K stamped on a shank is good enough to say that it is 18 karat gold. It's not.

Laurent: We need to keep educating, educating.

Joanna: So yes, so you need to, so I love being part of educating, educating people from the Goldsmiths Company is a form of education for sure and you know with the Goldsmith's Centre that the Goldsmith's Company supports and set up in 2012 where I think there's about 130 different jewellers and businesses and silversmiths reside there, they've got workshops there, you've got apprentices, you've got bursaries, you've got foundation classes, there are all types of talks going on, it's an amazing hub to support the trade in the industry. So for me it's just a, it is wonderful to be involved in that. And also from my own personal perspective, you know, it was through knowledge how I got on. So if I don't have the knowledge then I wouldn't I wouldn't have been able to have done what I've done. But you learn on the job, you know, you learn on the job.

Laurent: So, you learn on the job. So have you ever made any mistakes? I mean, have you valued something, for example, and then it turned out to be much more expensive than that?

Joanna: I've got personal indemnity against that.

Laurent: You're just giving people this information of value, I mean, it's purely informational.

Joanna: Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's just information. Yeah, there is just information that I have, that it's my opinion, you know, it's my opinion sometimes. I mean not everything is my opinion. Obviously some things are what they are. But I think, I think if you, you've got to get your hands dirty. You know, you, when you go to places and see where places, where things are made you know, that I find fascinating. I love being able to see different trades and to see how they. I haven't cut stones but I've watched them being cut and you know enamelling or all these different trades is so magical to see how these trades and the craft and the skills can come together to create a beautiful piece. We commissioned, with my Goldsmith's Company hat on, we commissioned the Coronation Cup for King Charles III to have at mansion house for his first banquet as as king and the coronation cup is an amazing beautiful object that 11 crafts people helped to make and 11 different crafts were involved in this one coronation cup. So I've just written an article for a magazine that it was about the value of craft against the digital, in the digital era. And I interviewed lots of different craftsmen and what was really a surprise and wonderful to hear was that they were not all, they weren't worried about AI because they see it as just another tool. You know, one person said, you know, well, we had drills, we have hand drills, then we had electric drills, then we have laser drills, and then we add CAD, and you know but he said these have all been tools. They haven't replaced the craft, they haven't replace the hand skills. That take years and years to make, you know, to learn. And so that was really, that was great. And I think, yeah, I think the craft and the hand skills will probably, hopefully we'll have a renaissance or have an appreciation from the consumer because it's a two-way thing. The consumer, going back to education, you've got to educate the consumer about the complexities and the skills and the soul that has gone into these pieces do you know you can you can see a CAD piece because it has no soul you know you can tell if it's um being made totally by machine but as yet AI cannot put the soul into a piece and um and that's what all these craftspeople said they said you know they That AI does not have my brain at the moment. So that was very reassuring and so the people downstairs that we you know that it's week two of Goldsmith's Fair and to see all the wonderful talent that is there and to think that just just need to get as many people to see it and to buy it for them to continue. Because we, you know, human beings without creativity, I mean, to me that's a lost, you end up being a machine. I mean you, we are human beings, human beings are about emotion, it's about creativity. And going back to your first original question, then that's when the stones and the jewellery and all of the human emotion will be played into those stones or those pieces of jewellery or silver.

Laurent: I think that's the beauty of jewellery is that we don't need it, we don t eat it, we don't do anything with it. So this element of craft, will it be a renaissance or is it already a renaissance or kind of a two tiered street where you have jewellery which is generically branded and rather low cost and then you have not necessarily high end but you have things that are really crafted and where people consume less but they consume better and that's perhaps where I find some optimism with gemstones or pearls or just jewellery that is beautifully crafted is that if you train the public well enough to really have a trained eye to see what is beautiful or not, or for them to really get a feeling for that, they do seem, you know, open to that.

Joanna: But that's why the Antiques Roadshow is such a wonderful platform for me to be able to say look at the back, look at this. I try to educate people on the show that why something has caught my eye and why is it that price and the craftsmanship that's gone into either the cutting of the stone or whatever it is. But yes, that is so important. And to have a platform like that is… Is great I mean you know six million people still watch it and it's been going for like 47 years uh so for on the night on a Sunday night

Laurent: You often get stopped on the street and people say, here's my ring or something.

Joanna: They usually say, weren't we at a party last night? I'm going, no, probably I was on, I was in your lounge at the time. But virtually, through the telly.

Laurent: And you wrote three books, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald. So you moved a little bit away from diamonds. Yes. Is there one you prefer? Is it hard to choose? Is it like children where you can't say which one's your favourite?

Joanna: No, um, each, no, each one was, um…

Laurent: Nnot necessarily the book, but the stone or the story about why certain people prefer certain stones.

Joanna: Oh, I think that's just a personal intuition, a personal feeling. I don't think you can… Put that into words, actually. It's beyond words. I've, out of those three, I've never had much dealings with or feelings with emeralds. They've never really, they've never really spoken to me. Rubies, rubies, that's, some things happen in your life and you think later on, you actually happen or have I just made that up? As you get older thinking that's why I'm writing everything down because just to make sure it did happen and i didn't make it up but uh I remember I was just had put. So those three books emerald, ruby and sapphire took me a total of 10 years to write um and you know going and visiting a lot of the gem deposits as well and which was amazing I mean that for me those three books. It's more than like the deal with Garrards at all. It's up there, it's up in what I, you know as a period of time that I'm proud of so with Ruby and I had just finished the book and I was at home and there was this old lady was walking across the front of my house in the front garden and she was peering through the hedges and I just, I thought, what is she doing? So I went out to see her. I said, oh, she said, you know. I was just wanting to see what these houses were like from the gardens from the back because you can't see them from the front. So I said, oh, she said, my son is thinking of buying one of these. I went, oh okay, it's fine, carry on. And I said well, I'm going to be, I'm gonna be moving house myself for a while. And, and I said well come in, come in to, I said I can give you some information about the area. So she came in, she came into my office at home. And there was all these kind of pages of Ruby, which was all sort of scattered over my desk. It hadn't quite gone to print, but it was about to go to print. And I had all the proofs all over my desks. And she said, oh, she said you've written a book, what's all this about Ruby? I said, oh, I've, um… Yes, I've actually just put it to bed. It's at the printer's, because she asked for a copy. And I said, well, I don't have a copy, and then she, I feel very weird saying this, but it did happen. And she pulled out of her pocket this biggest ruby in her hand, and it was sort of like, more like a corundum, rather than a ruby ruby, it was a sort of matrix in corundums. She pulled out this ruby and she said I'm the keeper of the ruby this is my I'm the I've forgotten the exact word I wrote it down and she said I have been destined to look after rubies or something or the elders have given me the responsibility to look after rubies and I'm just thinking I went, what? And she said, yes, I've written some books and I've written her name down and she wrote some books on mysticism, what have you, sort of like paperback type things and I wrote it down. And then she said, and I said, well, you better, I said that's from, I said that's an old Indian stone. She said, yes, yes you're right. I said oh, that's very nice. I said well, make sure you look after it. She said oh yes, I will. She said I won't, I won't lose it. And I said you know, I'm going to be putting a ruby in the four corners of my house because that's what they do in Mogok when, to protect the house. She said, oh yes, you must do that. I said, no, no I will, I will do that, because I'd just come back from Burma, so that I had heard of this story of how you protect your house by putting a ruby crystal in the four corners of your house. And then, which is why I must go now, I said oh okay. Off she went with this ruby in her pocket. It was bizarre. Totally bizarre. And then I had just finished Sapphire and I had a sapphire crystal another time a few years later when I finished Sapphire and I was doing this show and tell at dinner and I brought this sapphire Crystal out and handed it, so we've got to be careful with this and I handed it to somebody. And they put it down next to their crystal glass and the glass shattered. Just shattered. Other people have seen this, just to make sure it wasn't me or I hadn't made it up. So when people say to me, you know, stones and energy and all this, I certainly don't poo poo it and I have certainly had more than those two occasions when things have happened with stones. So I have a lot of respect for stones. And I like that. I like that because we're little humans. I mean, there's a whole other world out there we know nothing about, and I like that and I think.

Joanna: Stones and gemstones as a little tiny window into that other world which we are not really receptive to or we think we are or you think something's there or but um yeah i mean it's all very, you can't explain it, and I quite like the fact that you can't explain it.

Laurent: Well, and there's still there's still a mystery around gemstones. It's going to be a different mystery for every single person, but that's what probably keeps us curious as well. Yeah.

Joanna: Oh yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Laurent: In research or in teaching or in trade or in history or whatever it is, but there's this element of fascination that also comes from mystery I think.

Joanna: And that, you know, what you do at SSEF with all your science and how that's changed and evolved and what you can now tell about gemstones is unbelievable. Just to see that 50 years ago, you couldn't even really, no one really understood the difference between a stone from Sri Lanka or a stone form Kashmir or whatever. I mean, what they'd get very confused over those two anyway. They wouldn't be able to tell the difference so yeah I mean it's extraordinary and you know and I find I did an article about synthetic diamonds and natural diamonds for the Goldsmiths review just recently and just talking to people about the synthetic diamond from the technology side oh my goodness do you know it's fascinating quantum sensors and all this business. I mean, it's a whole, whole other dimension.

Laurent: The future of synthetic diamonds is not jewellery, the future of synthetic diamonds goes elsewhere, it was just good press or whatever.

Joanna: Yeah, exactly. No, exactly

Laurent: And it's really interesting, I've been digging a little bit deeper in literature to see how when culture pearls first arrived in the market and very nice synthetic rubies arrived in the market, you know, late, late 1800s, early 1900s, just the kind of the discourse, the language that was used, how the trade felt. There is so many parallels to what is happening with synthetic diamonds today, even though there was no TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, whatever back then. It's so interesting. Something comes and kind of rattles the trade, this way how emotional people get and the reactions that people have to it.

Joanna: As a gemologist, jewellery specialist, I am so pleased that I am living in this period because I felt like I'd missed out on the Verneuils, the synthetics, the cultured pearls, all of that. Suddenly we've got this game changer and to be living through it having started off the tail end of conventional diamond dealing and diamonds were king and you know no one questioned it and no one questions the investment and all this business oh my gosh to actually see and hear what's going on I find absolutely fascinating absolutely fascinating and it's and it is not the end of anything it's just it's changing it's just changing

Laurent: And so where do you see it changing to? I mean, perhaps as a final question, I'd like to ask you why do humans or why have humans collected gems and made jewellery for millennia? And where are we going with all this?

Joanna: Well, I think going back to my two instances of rubies and sapphires and how gems were, you know, they have an energy. So we are drawn to that and we always will be drawn to that. And you can, people will say, even if a wedding ring, you know try and for some people, they would never take their wedding ring off. You know, they would feel naked. They would feel that they didn't have a partner. They'd feel, and that's just a band of gold. So the connotations associated with just a simple band of gold is enormous and that's never going to change and that will, those feelings will still need, they'll still need feeding, those needs and those emotions will still be fed by something and that something is still going to be something that we can wear. Something we can hold, something that's tangible. And durable and durable. So whether you know gold at the moment you know it gets too expensive for people to be able to make as much gold jewellery but the craft and you'll see you know downstairs the craft of what they've been able to use with niobium and titanium and you know all these other aluminium all these other materials the craft is still there and the association with it we'll still be there. I think the materials will change, and the materials would develop. And the same with stones. I think it's, you know, diamonds are now allowing other stones to come into people's minds a bit more, which is, I think, is great, because actually it gives people the opportunity to, you know it doesn't matter if it's an agate, it doesn't matter what it is, if it is beautiful to you, and it's durable. You know, that will have meaning and it will have a significance for you and something. Everyone loves passing things down to other people and it's a part of you that's passed down. You know, I wear my mother's jewellery and it reminds me of her and I do. I literally, sometimes when I go out somewhere I think, oh, I think I'd like mum to come with me. And literally, it's by putting something on will make me feel that mum is with me and so that will that will never ever change. I mean one of the people that I interviewed for the digital article she which I had never heard she has a meta human that wears her jewellery I said what is a meta-human which is a digital human who wears her jewellery in the in the space of where meta-humans live which is on the internet somewhere but she said well that's just advertising my jewellery but I will physically make it so she said you know I still want to physically make it but I just advertise it on a meta human so I just thought well there we go you know but it's still the same it's just how things are going to be utilised and marketed and the technology. But the fundamental emotions and feelings, it will still be there, and so jewellery will still be there and silversmithing will still be there. And gemstones will still be there which is lovely. And therefore there will be jobs for people in the future to still educate people, to still make, to still want to wear it, to still buy it, to still collect it. So I don't see anything changing. In terms of the jobs are are still there to to and that is great so it's not a dying profession at all it's just a changing one which is and I'm very pleased to still be part of it and see the change.

Laurent: Well, to many more years, Joanna.

Joanna: Yes, definitely. Definitely.

Laurent: Thank you so much for this conversation.

Joanna: Pleasure.

Laurent: I think let's go downstairs to see the fair.

Joanna: Great, love to show you.

Laurent: Our guest was Joanna: on curiosity, colour gemstones, and why trust and craftsmanship still matter. That was another Hidden Gem by SSEF, the Swiss Gemological Institute. Thank you for listening.

In this episode of Hidden Gems, Michael Krzemnicki and Laurent Cartier meet Mr. Alfardan at GemGenève, where they speak with him about a lifetime's relationship with natural pearls. Mr. Alfardan grew up surrounded by pearls in Qatar, where his father — known as "the surgeon of the pearl" for his skill at peeling — was one of the most respected experts in the Gulf. The conversation traces the rise and fall of the Gulf pearling economy, from the wealthy years that supplied the world with natural pearls, to the collapse triggered by Mikimoto's cultured pearls, the two World Wars, and Indian independence in 1947, when one of the trade's most important markets effectively closed. Oil arrived just in time to transform the region — and Mr. Alfardan's family business diversified into trading, real estate, cars and jewellery — but he kept collecting pearls as a private passion that, over decades, grew into one of the most important natural pearl collections in the world.

About the guest

Books:

Credits

Transcript

Hussain Alfardan: The pearl means a lot to me as part of our family's tradition. Believe me, sometimes I talk to them. When I'm happy, I see good pearls. I sit and talk and enjoy my time with it and see the beauty of what God made for us.

Show Opener: SSEF presents the Hidden Gem Podcast, conversations with the world's leading people behind the journey of gems and jewels, from the source to the finished piece.

Laurent Cartier: Today on Hidden Gems, Michael Krzemnicki and I speak with Hussain Alfardan, one of the most influential collectors of natural pearls in the world. We met during the GemGenève trade show, so you may hear a little background sound around us. Mr. Alfardan grew up with pearls as part of life in the Gulf, a tradition that shaped families, livelihoods, and an entire region before oil was discovered. Over decades, he continued collecting through the lows, built one of the world's most important collections. And helped bring natural pearls back into global focus. We talk about rarity, patience, and the personal bond he has with pearls, and why for him, a natural pearl remains something truly made by nature.

Michael: It's a great great pleasure to have this moment with you, Mr. Alfardan. It's a great also honour. And I thought we'd take our time to talk a bit about our fascination because your fascination about pearls, me, also Laurent, we are all fascinated. And we want to learn a bit more and to hear also about your fascinations and how you came also to love pearls.

Hussain Alfardan: You know, first of all, I'm very happy with my relation with you. Long time we are together and you are taking care of all of our requirements. The pearl for me is part of my life. I lived with it since I was a child because our business in the pearl generations, grandfather to father and father and all the economy of the Gulf was depending on the pearling in the past, before the oil come. And it was a very wealthy area, supplying the whole world with the natural pearl. So I opened my eyes on that business. But many things happened. The market collapsed, people has problem, bankrupt for a while. It started with Mikimoto. Everybody thought the cultured pearl will replace the natural. Of course, after long, everybody recognised that the natural is natural and the cultured is cultured. Then the Second World War effect on it. Second and the first war and the second war also collapsed but was the market open for us still we are breathing. Business has gone down but was very good and we made selling to India when India took over (independence) in 1947 that was the end of the market in that area luckily we got the oil. Now you want to ask me how you… deal with the pearl. I saw experts, like my father, one of the famous in pearling, he's the first one, a surgeon of the pearl they called him because he peeled the pearl and he knows what is the kind of the pearl and he knows how to separate the pearls, and he knows to get the pearl in the right shape.

Michael: And these were pearls coming from Qatar, actually?

Hussain Alfardan: Yes, but rarely you find someone with that experience. I lived with that experience. I picked up from a lot. But the market has gone, no market for the pearl. For a while, we stopped because we have the oil. We converted our business in many activities. We converted our business in many activities. We went to trading. We went under cereal. We went into car business. We went into real estate, and many things. But I kept my relation with the pearl as a hobby. And slowly, slowly, grown up, it became a big business.

Michael: But you told also about when you were actually a child already, you got in touch with pearls, your father and grandfather. So you had kind of the chance to touch pearls to sort pearls and get the beauty.

Hussain Alfardan: Exactly, exactly. And I teach people to help me in assorting, because right now in this age, I need somebody who's expert. But not easy to find, but still I'm involved. In assorting, in finding the sizes, the quality, the colour, the shape of the thing. And for me, it's part of my life now. I had the biggest museum of the national pearl in the world. And the best, the biggest collection of natural pearls in the world in Doha. Near to my office, it is open for people whom I want them to see and value what I have. I hope one day you come and see it.

Michael: Definitely I will do.

Hussain Alfardan: So the pearl means a lot to me as part of our family's tradition. That's why you see me always with the pearl since we know each other. Now my son has taken over for all the business. Ali is in charge of the jewellery. He talks to you about emerald, ruby and sapphire and diamond and anything. We've grown up in the jewellery, grown up. We are representing a lot of international companies in the jewellery, in the watches. But the pearl is my means. It's my baby, which I take care of all the time. I've grown up the baby, but still I treat that as a baby.

Michael: Keeps you young. But that's good. I mean, I'm always seeing also this kind of, you know, trying to create the perfect necklace. You know, you buy pearls, maybe even necklaces, You take out some pearls, you rearrange them. I think it has to be a great pleasure to do so.

Hussain Alfardan: I separate the pearl, you know, I find many kind, many colour and one necklace is the mixture. I assort, I take the number one, number two, number three and try to put them to not easy things. Especially when you want to graduate or you want to make a necklace take a long time to find a piece here. It's not like diamond or other stone you cut the way you want.

Michael: But this is work you do, you still like to do.

Hussain Alfardan: So what I do, I have to get it from everywhere, buy, collect, and then I sort, try to match the colour, try the match the quality, the lustre, try many things. So this is not an easy job to do, being an expert. Well, I don't want to say too much about myself, but I am one of the experts in the market. There are a lot in the market, European, there are a lot, American, there a lot. Indian there are a lot.

Michael: I mean, with your heritage and background coming from a producing country of course and family history behind all this.

Hussain Alfardan: Our family and our relatives are all in the pearl.

Michael: So there was like a fleet of ships going out and divers.

Hussain Alfardan: Yes, we have divers. We have carpenters who build boats. We have sailors. We have captains in our family. We have agriculture in our country, farmers. And our family is a big family. It has got many activities and different kinds.

Michael: But I mean, this is like in the past. Nowadays, there is…

Hussain Alfardan: No, the things change completely. All our boys, all our children have been well-educated. They took big positions in everywhere, all the Gulf. Things change completely. They don't look at it. I am very proud. I have educated the whole world about the national pearl. When I came to the market, in Europe especially, I go to the auction. There is no competition for me. I bet the way I buy everything. In London, in Geneva, in New York and everywhere. A lot they come and buy it all. But what to do with it? People doesn't know anything about natural or cultured.

Laurent: So I'm wondering, what makes a beautiful natural pearl? Every natural pearl seems to be unique, different. This is also perhaps different to diamonds or cultured pearls. You're not necessarily seeking perfection. I'm wondering, can you explain to us a little bit more about how you examine pearls, what they show you, what they tell you? What is a beautiful natural pearl?

Hussain Alfardan: I'll tell you an example. Now you are looking, let us say looking to the diamond. How many kinds of diamonds are there? What I teach them, different kind of, different colour, different lustre. The pearl is like that, but I want to tell you how the pearl become famous now. Because it has skipped its price. It went down badly to the earth. And then when new came to sell, I'm sorry to say that, but that is the cultured, which you would think is replacing the natural pearl. No value for it. The natural pearl, there was one is around the whole world searching for it, who's searching for the art, and buying, and the price going up and up and up, and people recognise that the natural pearl is there even more valuable than the diamond or emerald or whatsoever today. Because people came back and know that the pearl is not man-made, it's God-made.

Michael: But this is maybe quite an important question because, you know, you have like a history also looking back and then looking forward also how to fascinate young generation into natural pearls. I'm not just talking about pearls but natural pearls, this is an important task.

Hussain Alfardan: This is what I see. I have done it locally, I have did it in the region, I've done it everywhere. Now, the biggest companies, I want to say it and I'm proud, is running after national pearl because the people well-educated, they know the national pearl, are running to buy. Many big names in the jewellery now looking after the pearl.

Michael: But this is actually, it's like the term you say, education is key. And like a museum, exhibition, a book you have with your collection of pearls, so that's absolutely key.

Hussain Alfardan: My book, which I made, I gave you a copy. This is a lot of universities are teaching their students from that history. In the meantime, the new generation become to know and they are proud to own one pearl. I've managed to get the people patiently. And when I go everywhere, as you are now talking to me and I'm telling you what it is, and I am sure you will know that the natural pearl will remain as you have your own laboratory and you can say what it is, you can value it. Now, the expert with you, they tell me this is seeded. Seeded by what? By natural pearl, small pearl, seeded pearl. But all the layers are natural, but no value for it. As a client, when you tell them this is manmade, no, I want the natural. As a diamond, there is a lab diamond today. Looks the same. See the difference between the prices.

Michael: I mean, that's probably also our standing and role in the trade. I mean we see partly cultural, we see all, except for natural. And that's also our fascination with this material. That's true.

Hussain Alfardan: That's what I, to me always, I look, call on you. I get demand from everywhere in the world for big pieces. And that's why I want to make sure. I will tell you something else behind that. I make sure that really I'm giving the natural pearl for my client. Many pieces return back to me. Tested by SSEF, become cultured. You remember lately? Some of them I went, I took my money. Some of them, I forgot. Improved your testing. Improved every now and then, improved and improved. Now we cannot make mistakes.

Michael: This is science.

Hussain Alfardan: That's why I want my client to be sure that he's taking the right piece as the diamond when you test it and give the right indication about it or the emerald or whatever the stone is.

Laurent: And why do you think natural pearls are so rare? I mean, when your father taught natural pearls to you, what was in Qatar, what was the thinking back then of how pearls formed, or why an oyster formed a pearl ?

Hussain Alfardan: I didn't understand your question.

Laurent: I'm saying, why do you think oysters form natural pearls? Is there a story from also your father, your grandfather, of why in so many oysters, only very few produce natural pearls. It seems to be like a miracle of.

Hussain Alfardan: It is for me. I tell you, my group of companies is the biggest in Qatar and in the Gulf. My business in the pearl is nothing, small piece, maybe 5% of my business. But this one lived with me, it's part of me, sometimes I talk to them. When I'm happy I see good pearls, I sit and talk and enjoy my time with it. And see the beauty of what God made for us. That make me to be linked with the pearl and stay with it and enjoy my life and make business. But I'm proud I managed to educate the whole world that the pearl is there. Today in this one (trade show in Geneva), I could not buy anything. The price is shooted.

Hussain Alfardan: Why? Because all the big companies, now you would see from Cartier, you would see from Harry Winston, you will see from Tiffany, everybody is sending for testing. And there is a big demand for it. With the big families, with the people like to own. It's a big problem for me because prices have gone up. But the other way, I have the biggest collection. I gain a lot.

Michael: When you talk about pearls, apart from that this is developing as a business, there is still some kind of a magic behind it. How does a pearl form? I mean, at some point, there is scientific answers. But I think there might be also some traditional ideas in Qatar or in the Middle East. How is a pearl, why pearls form, why this beauty comes out of shells. Is there like a tradition? Or myths coming from the Middle East and Qatar.

Hussain Alfardan: I tell you, and we have sayings in the past with the people, the dealer of the pearl, they say the dealer of the pearls is up and down, has to be very patient. Has to be rubber heart, not a human heart. The attack will come, price will go down. You have to be patient. If you can afford, don't sell. I have a friend here in Geneva, they have pearl since 10 years. He doesn't want to sell. Every time I go to him, he doesn't want to sell he's asking too much. He says, because of I feel this is the value of it. I say, you are asking six or seven times of the market value. He said, this is my price. Every time he showed to me, now 10 or 12 years, he has got many pieces tested by SSEF.

Michael: Each time he has the same price or it goes up?

Hussain Alfardan: It's happy, but the price is over. Over by far. Over, by far. This is what I say. The pearl has come up, and the demand will increase. And the people recognise that the natural pearl is one of the stones which can keep price. And who sold, regretted. A lot of families sold them. I have a historical piece. I paid for a family from Britain, $11 million for a small piece, dollar. 11 million. I paid for another one a pearl is known as Hope. I paid 20 million dollars for one pearl. That's the historical value because it belonged to someone.

Hussain Alfardan: Why keep them both? Why it give this price that one. And one day, maybe 500,000, nobody will buy it. Price has come up. People recognise the value of the pearl, recognise that it will remain forever.

Laurent: And I imagine that when you first started with pearls, it was mostly pearls from the Gulf. This is probably what you learned and saw from your father, but then over the last few decades, so much other natural pearls came into it, and it became a much more international industry. How do you feel about Mexican pearls, conch pearls, Melo pearls? We are always amazed in the lab also, not just to see white pearls, but to see pearls from so many different species. And there's also this beautiful book by Hubert Bari with many pieces from your collection in there. How do you feel about all these different species, do you have a favourite?

Hussain Alfardan: For the natural, you mean? Yes, for the natural. My feeling, natural pearl will not remain as it is with the price today, which is top, top. It will go up, because the rare become more. The stones which you are getting, the good ones, the blue, the diamond or, green diamond, it's rare to find and very little bit. Now, the best pearl will be the same. And it is the same now. I look to the market what will be. I looked at it. All over the jewellers, looking as they are looking for the other stone.

Laurent: But do you have a favourite natural pearl? Is there one natural pearl or one colour that you like?

Hussain Alfardan: Many. When you come to my museum, you will be surprised to see many pieces, unusual. And many companies, big companies, I don't want to name companies, but they come there. They sit there and they buy from me. Now they will be surprised when the next one they come, maybe in a month from today. I will double the price.

Michael: Still doing good business!

Hussain Alfardan: Why I sell it when I cannot get it with the double price?

Michael: Yeah, you do like the Geneva person you mentioned, huh? Yeah, yeah. Just six times.

Hussain Alfardan: I went to all of my friends here, their prices is ridiculous, I said why, what happens? Maybe I didn't buy much this time.

Michael: Maybe I'll say something which would be interesting. I mean, looking back again, I was in Qatar. I mean I came to your place, it was so nice, but it's a very modern city, I mean the skyline, but when you maybe reflect on your child's days, I think Qatar was quite a different place. So maybe you can explain a bit from from your youth how this was living in Qatar at the time.

Hussain Alfardan: I didn't understand your question.

Michael: How was Qatar, let's say in the 1950s?

Hussain Alfardan: If you want to compare what Qatar was, it was a village, but it's grown up because God gave us the wealth and the oil, but we are linked to our roots, we are sailors, we are divers, we're traders in the pearl, our country people from everywhere they come.

Michael: Did you dive yourself?

Hussain Alfardan: No, no, no. You know, the diver. The diver, let me tell you how the diving. The diving in the past, everybody who goes on the boat is a partner. There is no salary. Sailor, diver, puller, and other on the board. The captain and the owner of the boat has a share. And the diver has the share, the biggest share, after the captain and owner. And the puller has got a pair. Other boys working also have differences. This is the divide. They have to work hard to make money. This is the story of the world. But you see, from where did they come? They were the people of the country. And the past, and the past centuries, really. They used to be slaves, slavery. They bring slavers, and they bring people from the market. They die, and the live with it. That's why the slaves, when they come to our country, they are lucky. We treat them a humanity, like ourself, be part of our family, part of children. And they meet today, that slave they are in paradise, because all of them took big positions. They are very wealthy. All their families. There is no slavery. There is human being. And they mix with the family, they married, and they become ministries, and they become ambassadors, and they become many. That was work hard, like me, like my diver, my other one. They deserve to be part of our country people. That people they work hard for us and we make our life easy. And the sailors are, and the human being also the same. They take the same, slave and the others. They take the same share.

Laurent: And so in your experience from the boats, how many shells do you need to open to get an actual pearl?

Hussain Alfardan: How many what?

Laurent: How many shells? How many oysters do you to open?

Hussain Alfardan: If you are lucky at 20% you will find pearl, from the 20% maybe you get 2-3% good one. The rest are different kind, a baroque, small baroque big baroque and near to the round and different shape, but to get a genuine one 2- 3% maximum, if you are lucky 5%. In 1000 you get maybe 50, as good pearl.

Laurent: And the captain and the sailors need to also go know where to look, right? The oyster beds.

Hussain Alfardan: They know their work. They know the location, they know the locations, all well-known. On the charts now, it's easy to go. I have divers now, and by themselves, they took it as a hobby. They bring from Kuwait, I buy every year. I buy a lot from them. But I don't get the big ones, which I'm looking for, all small ones. Good ones, and different kind. But still, the pearl is there, in that location.

Laurent: But luckily, there's also old pearls in the market that you can buy, right?

Hussain Alfardan: Mostly the old pearl, as I came now from the auction of Phillips, has got some pearls, belongs to families.

Hussain Alfardan: They are lucky these families that prices have gone up so much. They will get more, three, four times more than what they paid. Natural pearl will remain. I'm happy, I say I have put in my thumb on the world that I educated the people to recognise what the natural pearl is. And they value it and they will be in their mind forever.

Laurent: But the value is one thing in that people see, but what do you say to people who don't understand the beauty of natural pearls? How would you, what would you tell them? What fascinates you about natural pearls, what is the beauty, aside from the rarity?

Hussain Alfardan: You're right, you're right the beauty when I see Tiffany, when I see Cartier, when I see Boucheron when I see other people. The advertising the girl wearing one pearl paid to Elizabeth Taylor with 12 million dollar. A pearl.

Laurent: One pearl, La Peregrina.

Hussain Alfardan: And now they came back and see that our talent of the national pearl in our region. We do it. As things are changing, you do as what we're doing now. Introduce it to the market in a nice way. Now with the media, always you see about it in our country, Alfardan what's offering to the people. As example, one client of ours, bought the pearl. He was behind it. And after a few years, she took it to place to check. They told her this is cultured pearl, which is a natural pearl, because he doesn't know. She brought it to me. I said, if it's natural pearl this one. Could have been two million. And she paid $140 on it. How many dollars? About $30, $35, $30-$35,000. $35? No, let's say $30. $35. $35 thousand, which is two million, so you want it, and it has certificate. It has SSEF certificate also. Who knows about it, but expert knows it. I replaced it for her with one better (pearl). I took from her more money. And I gave her all the specials. If you have doubt, this is the value not in the pearl, the value in the jewellery, in the diamond. But it was a bluff piece. It's a natural, it's a bluff piece. But if you want to buy something really gem, you have to pay for it like I love stone.

Michael: This is something which, for me, is interesting because, you know, we test pearls, so we have lots of, say, analytics, analytical methods to see whether it's a freshwater, natural or cultured pearl, whether it is a saltwater, cultured pearl or natural pearl. But I guess you have, when you look at an item, which you see maybe even at the show, you have a feeling it's maybe not always correct, but to kind of recognise a cultured pearl or chinese freshwater pearl for sure, but on what are you looking for?

Hussain Alfardan: I'll tell you one story yesterday happened. You know Michel Farah. I went to see him in the booth here. Ali saw in the window some pearl. He said, this is cultured pearl. Ali brought it to me. I looked at it. He said this is cheap, cultured. I look at it, I said, it is natural pearl. 99, I said 90, let's say it's 90 percent. You have 10 percent. He said I didn't take it for testing because SSEF will charge me $1,000 for it. That's yesterday. I said this is natural. Baroque, natural. But sculpture will never be like this, or this, like this. Not only that, I have feeling. I go to the boutiques sometime in the market, I did what I could. I go inside, give me this, give me that, give this, three, four, five. I went in Munich once, I got a lot, I took them all.

Michael: Of people who don't know the material.

Hussain Alfardan: I feel it, I have a feeling.

Michael: Exactly.

Hussain Alfardan: I have feeling. And most of the time, I'm right. I look at it, I look the colour, I look at the thing. Yesterday, a few days ago, in my collection. I picked two pearls. I say, where came these two from? This is cultured, my feeling. Also the weight, you feel it. When I put on a small pearl, I feel it, it is not natural. That's my heart telling me also, this is natural or not. He has got a certificate, one is SSEF and another one, saying this is a natural pearl. Yesterday, I have experience in looking to the pearl, and then I can say what it is. But sometimes I make a mistake. Could happen.

Michael: But I mean, you look, you don't take a loupe, or you take a loupe?

Hussain Alfardan: No, I said without touching the loupe. Rarely, if I want to see the piece and it has got some crack or something, or it ends, I use the loupe. I don't carry the loupe, he carry it and he give it to me. When I want to see something.

Michael: But the normal approach is just looking, touching, seeing.

Hussain Alfardan: Sometimes in these places, I put them aside, as I have doubt this is not real.

Michael: This is something which is similar even for us as a gemologist. I mean, we go through a procedure, but when we see pearls, for sure we have also, by experience, a look how we already guess and sometimes we are right, sometimes we might be surprised.

Hussain Alfardan: Exactly, exactly. It's the same. Same as you look for the other, as experts in the other stone. You have feeling. And sometimes one Swiss came to my booth and my jewellery shop in Doha. He said this is Kashmir, you know, this is Ceylon, this is whatever. They know. The expert in the stone. And they come to our exhibition, experts also, or some client they want to buy for royal family, they bring expert, telling what it is by looking at.

Laurent: And you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, peeling. How many good peelers are there left in the world?

Hussain Alfardan: There is no peeler in the market. The last one was, unfortunately, he passed away last month, and he was the last in the region peeling. And in Europe, there is a lady in Paris. She retired and all recovered, and she's shaking. She cannot feel. I don't see any peeler. The peeler has to take the layer. You see the layer, what it is? Before take the layer, she has to look into the pearl, what's next will be under. Maybe this phase is better than the other. And sometime you remove the layer you find a better, much better value to reduce the weight. What will give you better pearl? Price will go up. But no, in my knowledge, no peeler in the world today. And this is what I, I am stuck. There are for, for the cheap pearl I have expert. But their hands, not as the peeler of the best pearl. Best pearl you have to remove it. My father, he's number one in the world. He used to remove the layer carefully with a very sharp knife. And very soft sand paper. To remove it without touching the stone down, like a scratch or something. So he by stone, by stone and paper, soft one, he remove it, remove it carefully, and with sharp knife, upper he comes to, I look at it, I try it, but my hand it doesn't work well, my brother has done it. He could do that, but unfortunately he was 95 and…

Michael: It's not the brother, I think I met, was it the brother I met last year when I was visiting you who did quite a lot of photos also.

Hussain Alfardan: In where?

Michael: When I came to Geneva in summer.

Hussain Alfardan: Doha?

Michael: No in summer last year or the year before…

Hussain Alfardan: Oh, this is another brother, another brother. This is the undersecretary of Ministry of Agriculture. He's the under-secretary, but he retired that time. This is Ja'far, you saw him. This is the story of the pearl. If you get someone from the… By the way, my family, not everybody is interested in the pearl, I'm trying to pull Ali, I bring him to you to see him. But he, two years now, I bring him to buy with me here. At least he see how this market is going, how is the things, how he can recognise. I show him what is the dent (flaw), I show them the colour, I show him… The lustre is the most important. Now, there is two necklaces we show today, two the same size and the auctioneer valuing them the same. In my opinion, this is 10, this 50, the difference so far, but they are putting it the same price.

Michael: Yeah, they are not experts. They need you.

Hussain Alfardan: That's right.

Michael: And do you also buy from auction then?

Hussain Alfardan: Buy from the auction, of course.

Michael: From the show, like here, from the auction.

Hussain Alfardan: I buy from everywhere. But I'm slow now because I don't travel much. Sometimes my phone will call. I send somebody to check and to give me the weight of his important pieces. Or sometimes I share with some Swiss here in New York and London. I say, buy it to me with that price. I pay you commission, so on and so on. They do it, friends they are. He sometimes he say we buy it and we share it together.

Laurent: Just another question before we finish. I mean, you mentioned the natural pearl price was very low in the 60s, 70s, 80s. Did some people think you were crazy to continue collecting pearls? You must also have been very, very happy when the appreciation for natural pearls came back around 2000. What changed this? People began to appreciate. It's like forgotten in there.

Hussain Alfardan: Exactly. Forgotten and they want to sell and nobody buy. I tell you the auction in Geneva, when I come here alone, nobody buy, I buy. I don't sell because I don't have buyer even. Our country, they forgot the power.

Laurent: And so were some people saying you're crazy because you're buying all these pearls and you believed…

Hussain Alfardan: I believed in it, I lived with it, and I believe it will come up. And I opened the market in our country. I came to the mayor and we said, the governor, the ruler. I said the tradition thing is from the Gulf, it is the natural pearl. Why do you buy diamond only and think for your guest's gift? They accepted me and they buy. I started growing my business. I started buying from everywhere. Sellers become very happy. I bought so many beautiful pieces, historical pieces with a low price.

Laurent: Do you have one favourite pearl, a historic pearl, or you like this for me is really the most?

Hussain Alfardan: A lot, I have, I said so many, I don't want to sell, but I sold one necklace. It was made for Rayya, the first wife of king of Iran, Shah Iran, made by Bulgari. I paid 150,000 Swiss francs for it. I sold it 8 million Riyals. Today I'm regret. If I find it, I will buy it 20 million. That is the value of it, but nobody buy it. That's why everybody bankrupt in our region. Nobody buy it, they buy cultured, they look the same, and the people in trouble in Europe and all the world after the Second World War.

Laurent: And how were natural pearls worn traditionally in Qatar? Was it just women or also men like in India where some men wore natural pearls?

Hussain Alfardan: This is everything for the women, the women is killing us, everything, the beauty they want to have. These poor divers, they go down, they maybe die because they bring this treasure to make the ladies happy.

Laurent: So you have made many women happy in the world with the natural pearl.

Hussain Alfardan: Ladies, we are working hard for them to make them happy and see them smiling and enjoying our life with them. Without them we cannot live. We are all together partners. The beauty is beauty will remain and the natural pearl came back strong and I'm happy. I have done my best to help and bring it up. And all these people they know in the market.

Laurent: Thank you very much for your time and also for teaching us.

Hussain Alfardan: I mean you aren't talking too much. If I'm not busy I would have stayed longer with you and give you more.

Laurent: We will come to Doha and we will continue the next session.

Hussain Alfardan: You come to be my guest there, I'll put you in a boat with a diver. I will take you in my boat. I didn't take you on my boat, it's a dhow, it was a big dhow. I brought an Italian company, they decorated, they have so many rooms and it's beautiful, but the show is dhow. And we have, you can travel to it, the ocean, it is a big one. We'll get you somebody to take you to the place where they dive. And have lunch. Glass of wine and that's part of the world and enjoy the beauty of our country.

Michael: We look forward to this.

Hussain Alfardan: I would be very happy to see you there.

Michael: Thank you so much, really a great pleasure and I'm looking forward to coming to Qatar.

Laurent: Our guest was Hussain Alfardan: on natural pearls, heritage and the lifelong pursuit of something rare. That was another Hidden Gem by SSEF, the Swiss Gemological Institute. Thank you for listening.

This episode was originally recorded in Swiss German in the summer of 2024. The English version you hear is a voice-over, with Laurent Cartier reading his own words and Martin Herzog voicing Henry, so the conversation could reach a wider audience.

In this episode of Hidden Gems, Laurent Cartier sits down with Professor Dr. Henry Hänni in the summer of 2024 for a wide-ranging conversation about a life spent with gemstones. Henry passed away on 8 January 2025, and this episode is shared in his memory — and as a tribute to a teacher whose curiosity, scientific rigour, and humour shaped a generation of gemmologists, Laurent among them.

Henry traces his unconventional path into science: a fascination with colour and symmetry from childhood that drew him equally to plants and stones, an early job as a workshop assistant at the University of Basel's mineralogical institute, and a self-directed return to high school via correspondence and evening classes that allowed him to graduate at 24 and begin his university studies. He recalls discovering that fieldwork was not for him, finding his place in the laboratory, and joining SSEF — then in Zurich — under its first director, George Bosshart.

The conversation moves through the work that helped define modern gemmology: the development of instrument-based analysis using X-ray microprobe, X-ray fluorescence, FTIR and Raman spectroscopy at a time when most gemmologists relied on the loupe and the microscope alone; the seminal 1990 Journal of Gemmology paper on Kashmir sapphires that pushed the trade toward evidence-based origin determination; and the work on Colombian emeralds that revealed artificial resin treatments being passed off as oil — research that produced a meeting in Bogotá Henry ultimately could not attend, having received death threats.

Henry reflects on the work he is most proud of — his explanation of how cultured pearls form, published in German, English and Chinese — his investigations into pearl formation that involved cutting natural pearls in half to understand what was inside, his correction of the misnamed "chloromelanite" to maw-sit-sit with Jürg Meier, and his discovery of heat treatment in demantoid garnets, which he was the first to describe. He and Laurent discuss the growing gap between specialists and generalists in gemmology, the importance of teaching, and Henry's lifelong impatience with what he politely calls "talking nonsense" — the small false claims that, left unchecked, fly everywhere.

The conversation closes with Laurent telling Henry that SSEF has established the Henry A. Hänni Scholarship, which supports students from gemstone-producing countries — a recognition Henry received with visible emotion.

About the guest

Henry's research publications: Explore here

The Henry A. Hänni Scholarship

**Credits

Transcript

Henry Hänni: I think it's really my fascination for gemstones themselves that led me to gemology, the beauty of colour and symmetry. It's a bit like flowers. Gemstones are colourful. They're symmetrical as crystals. That's what got me hooked.

Show Opener: SSCF presents the Hidden Gem podcast, conversations with the world's leading people behind the journey of gems and jewels from the source to the finished piece.

Laurent Cartier: Today on Hidden Gems, I'm sharing a conversation with Professor Dr. Henri Hänni, Director of SSAF from 1990 to 2009, whose work helped shape modern gemology. We recorded this interview in the summer of 2024. Henry passed away on January 8th, 2025, and it's a true privilege to be able to share his voice, his humour, and his clarity with you now. Henri's path into gemology was anything but conventional. From workshop assistant at a mineralogical institute to a doctorate in geology, and then to becoming director of SSEF, where he advanced gemology with scientific rigour without ever losing sight of wonder.

Laurent: Henry, how did you even get started with stones—with gemstones? How did you get into that?

Henry: I’ve been fascinated by the striking beauty of colour and symmetry ever since I was a little kid. That fascination led me toward plants—specifically flowers—and also stones. After a long journey, which included partially attending high school and a few other things, I came to a crossroads where I had to decide what I was going to do next. My father asked, “So, what do you want to do now?” and I said, “Either something with plants, or something with stones.”

Laurent: So you started out fueled by your passion, and later you went to university so you could put that passion into practice professionally?

Henry: Exactly. And I worked the whole time while I was studying, so it was like carrying a double load. But it all worked out fine.

Laurent: You had the drive to go into gemmology, right?

Henry: A strong drive, yes.

Laurent: Who shared that interest in stones and plants with you—your father or your mother?

Laurent: But there was still some sort of scientific mindset going on—an ability to observe closely, perhaps?

Laurent: Then you went on to study at the University of Basel, correct?

Henry: Yes, I studied in Basel, and at the same time, I kept working as a workshop assistant right up until I finished my PhD. After that, I went looking for a position that offered better pay and where my doctorate would be recognized. There was an opening at SSEF—back then, it was still in Zurich—and I went to introduce myself. George Bosshart said, “We could use someone like him,” so he hired me.

Laurent: But before you actually started at SSEF, you did a lot of traveling—Greenland, for example—doing geological fieldwork and mapping. Were you already interested in gemstones at that time, or did that come later?

Henry: I quickly realized that field geology wasn’t really my thing. I didn’t enjoy all the heavy hiking. I was more into lab geology or mineralogy. And gemology is basically a lab-based discipline—you’re not trudging around outside all day.

Laurent: And gemmology is often seen as a “soft science.” I’m sure you felt that attitude at the university, where some folks didn’t take it too seriously. How did you handle that?

Henry: Back then, gemology had only a few pioneers or role models—Eduard Gübelin was one of them. I watched what he was doing and noticed what else was possible, so I went ahead and did it. That mainly led me to expand instrument-based gemology—using X-ray microprobe, X-ray fluorescence, FTIR, Raman, and that kind of equipment.

Laurent: So you basically played a big part in making gemmology a proper science—really pushing it in a scientific direction. Because hardly anyone was using advanced analytical methods for gemstones back then. It was mostly microscopes and loupes—even for Gübelin. That’s your big contribution to gemology, isn’t it?

Henry: I still prefer someone using a loupe over not looking at all—at least they’re looking. Or maybe opening one eye and closing the other with the loupe, right? (laughs) But yes, the microscope is better, and it’s standard today. It’s more comfortable; you can rest your arms so the image doesn’t shake, which is great. It also lets you “freeze” what you’re seeing—take slides or photos—and print them. Gübelin’s photo atlas, for example, is like a bible you can flip through and is a great reference for gemologists.

Laurent: But you weren’t just in the lab all the time. You mentioned lab gemology, but you had a good friend and did a bunch of trips to gemstone-producing regions…

Henry: India, Pakistan—very important. And Burma, too.

Laurent: Was there a particular trip that stands out for you?

Henry: Not really—I just always looked forward to the next one. I really liked being in Australia, and I went to see a diamond mine in China.

Laurent: How was that?

Henry: Honestly, it was kind of monotonous. They weren’t really mining anymore—apparently, they’d run out of diamonds. The hole was still there, and people were still poking around desperately, but there was nothing left. I also saw the Big Hole in South Africa.

Laurent: After all those trips and all the people you met, why do you think people search for gemstones? What’s behind that fascination?

Henry: Personally, I was looking for gemstones to take them home with me as reliable reference samples for later scientific studies—to see, for example, how much vanadium is in a Sandawana emerald, and so on. That ended up becoming a huge collection, which luckily is now at the SSEF.

Laurent: But you also met many people for whom it wasn’t just about science, right?

Henry: I think it’s really my fascination for gemstones themselves that led me to gemmology—the beauty of colour and symmetry. It’s a bit like flowers: gemstones are colourful, they’re symmetrical as crystals, and later on, if they’ve been tumbled, they get cut like crystals, too. I think that’s something intrinsic.

Laurent: So part of your curiosity was just wanting to understand colour, crystallinity, how they grow, how you can tell them apart…

Henry: To really understand it, I probably would have had to study physics—like, why exactly is a sapphire blue, or why does a tourmaline turn out brown, for instance. But in practice, it’s mostly about identifying what you’re faced with and whether or not it’s been treated. Those were the main questions. You have to stay sharp and have a good memory to understand what you see.

Laurent: You also brought other strengths with you when you got into this industry. You cut stones yourself, prepared them yourself—so maybe you had a more hands-on approach than people who only look at the science. Did that push you to keep experimenting?

Henry: Yeah, it’s basically a trait of mine—I always feel the need to question things. If someone says something I don’t think is true, I’ll check it out on my own. One example is how, for years—decades, really—people said that a grain of sand slipping into an oyster is what forms a pearl. But I just couldn’t imagine that a creature living in the sand and in the water would be bothered by a grain of sand. And how would the sand even get so deep into the flesh, where the pearl is eventually found? That kind of puzzle is what drove me forward.

Laurent: So, how exactly does a pearl form, then? What did you find out? Are we any smarter about it now? Do you know the answer?

Henry: Well, are we smarter now? I did some experiments involving injuries to the edge of the shell to see how they heal. My view is still that when the outer mantle gets injured, some of its cells get carried deeper inside, where they form kinds of cysts. The interesting part is that the edge of an oyster shell isn’t always the same throughout its life—when the oyster is young, the edge is in a different position than when it’s older. Over time, the oyster’s shell edge keeps growing outward. Early on, it produces calcite, and later aragonite, which is why most natural pearls have a brownish core at the centre and then only later develop their proper lustre around the outside. That’s why you’ll sometimes hear people talk about “immature pearls.” If they’re harvested too soon and they’re still brown, nobody really wants them, so they get thrown out. Once they turn white and nacreous, then they’re acceptable.

Laurent: You really wanted to get to the bottom of this—so much so that you had the courage to cut pearls in half, even natural pearls, just to see what’s inside.

Henry: Yes, and that had its price. It meant sacrificing a few natural pearls, but then at least we knew for sure. It was also important to publish those findings—to really spread the word so other people could benefit from that knowledge.

Laurent: Out of all your research projects and publications, are there one or two that you’re especially proud of?

Henry: My explanation of how cultured pearls form—that was published in German, in English, and also in Chinese. I’m proud of that one.

Laurent: There’s another one I think a lot of people know about: your work on Kashmir sapphires. In 1990, you published a paper in the Journal of Gemmology—it was one of the first truly scientific studies on that subject. What motivated you? Why was that topic so important?

Henry: Well, I noticed that some dealers were basically mislabelling stones, putting on a product label that wasn’t accurate—

Laurent: You mean, misrepresenting the origin?

Henry: Yeah, basically. There’s a difference between Kashmir sapphire and Sri Lankan sapphire. Back then, those were two main competing origins found on the market. You can tackle the problem from different angles—chemistry, spectroscopy, microscopy. Those were the tools we had at the time. We even used electron microscopy in some cases. If we were lucky enough to polish the stone down to an inclusion, we could see what it really was. Eventually, that built a database of what’s probably from Kashmir and what probably isn’t.

Laurent: And why is that label—Kashmir versus Sri Lanka—so important?

Henry: Because the price difference can be a factor of ten.

Laurent: And so they need gemologists to confirm that origin.

Henry: Yes. And that’s about the time gemologists who didn’t really know how to do it would just declare something to be Kashmir if they thought it might be, without actually having much evidence—just going by looks. I wanted to sort of, well, cut down on that kind of approach.

Laurent: That probably didn’t make you popular with some dealers or even some gemmologists. How did the trade react to your insistence on being so transparent and scientific?

Henry: My goal was to show others what to look for so they’d have a chance to identify a true Kashmir sapphire. That became the publication with all those beautiful images, including rock samples from Kashmir that had sapphire crystals which we could also analyse for trace elements. It’s all in the collection here—Pascal Entremont, I believe, also provided us with some of these samples.

Laurent: But you never actually visited the Kashmir mines yourself, right? They’re over 5,000 meters above sea level—really tough to get to.

Henry: No, I never did.

Laurent: You also had some run-ins with Colombians over artificial resin versus oil treatments. Could you tell us a bit about that?

Laurent: Yes, that’s when dealers started feeling overwhelmed and asked labs for help, because more and more emeralds were being treated. Before that, they didn’t really mind—they’d just say the stones were “oiled.” But with today’s instruments, we can see exactly what kind of oil it is. I realized that in many cases, it wasn’t actually oil—it was some type of artificial resin. I found a way to differentiate between oil and artificial resin. You can clean the oil out, but artificial resin is much harder to remove. Once I started pointing that out, there was a big meeting in Bogotá.

Laurent: You couldn’t go, right? I heard you even got death threats—people didn’t want you to show up in Bogotá and present your findings.

Henry: I’d better not confirm that; otherwise, they might come for me again! (laughs) Actually, a funny anecdote from Colombia: People there had such high regard for the GIA—“GIA, GIA, GIA,” as if it was the best and only real scientific institution. At an international emerald conference, an American woman from the GIA lab was presenting, and she showed a photo of her microscopic setup with a camera on top.

Henry: She pointed at the camera and said, “This is our laser.” But it wasn’t a laser. There wasn’t a laser to be seen anywhere! That’s when it dawned on me—sometimes the reputation is way bigger than what’s actually going on behind the scenes. I just hope that never becomes the case for the SSEF, and so far, it seems it isn’t.

Laurent: So did you speak up in Colombia and say, “That’s not a laser”?

Henry: No, you can’t really do that…

Laurent: You can’t, yeah. Though sometimes you did speak up, right? You’ve been known to voice your opinion.

Henry: Yeah, well, regarding those death threats in Bogotá… I remember riding in a car next to that American woman. When I got in, I let her have the window seat. She asked, “Don’t you want to sit here?” and I said, “No, no,” and once she was seated, I told her, “You know, they do a lot of shooting around here.” (laughs)

Laurent: But she made it out just fine?

Henry: She made it out in one piece, yes. Just joking around.

Laurent: Colombia was big money, especially back then, with emeralds—it was a different era, and it could’ve been dangerous for you.

Laurent: These days, gemmology is getting more and more scientific. We have extremely advanced methods, and some people don’t even bother with the microscope anymore; they don’t look at inclusions themselves. What’s your take on that, and what advice would you give young gemologists?

Henry: Well, there’s a growing gap between specialists and generalists.

Laurent: You were a generalist?

Henry: I was a generalist who became a specialist, and I’d suggest every specialist go back at some point and see how things look from the basic level—what people are actually doing, what they’re talking about. You can’t really force people to do that, but it helps.

Laurent: So, we’ve got some stones here—jasper, charoite from Siberia, Russia. What are you going to do with them? Are you going to cut them?

Henry: I’ll give them a nice shape and then polish them so they become cabochons. My hope is that gemmologists who look at them won’t just test refractive indices or density, but instead say, “Oh, that looks like charoite, it could be charoite.” Over the years, way too much time has been spent using refractometers and polariscopes to identify faceted gems. During Covid, gemmologists couldn’t meet up in person, and I thought, “We can’t just let a year or two go by without doing anything. Let’s keep gemmology moving!” So I put together a set of stones that you can tentatively identify by sight, like tiger’s eye—just to refresh the memory of names, or jadeite, nephrite, etc.

Laurent: That’s really the foundation of gemmology: being able to recognize and identify. In the lab, we mostly handle rubies, sapphires, and emeralds of high-quality. But mineralogy and gemmology are actually way broader. There are hundreds of different stones you can use. You’ve got a special ring you’ve had for a long time with maw-sit-sit in it. Can you tell us a bit about that stone? Have you visited the mine or the village in Burma?

Henry: Not the exact village, but I have been to Burma a few times.

Laurent: What’s so special about maw-sit-sit?

Henry: It was another instance where something didn’t sound right to me, and it spurred me to investigate. At the time, Eduard Gübelin was the top gemologist in Switzerland, and he presented that material—he showed it off at meetings of the SGG (Swiss Gemmological Society). Then I got hold of a sample and studied it with Jürg Meier. We found that the name he gave it—“chloromelanite”—couldn’t be correct, because chloromelanite is already a term for a certain pyroxene solid solution mixed crystal. So we prepared a thin section to see what it really was. Turns out it contains jadeite, albite, kosmochlor. Maw-sit-sit is a nice gem material.

Laurent: That’s one of the beautiful things about gemstones, right? You’ve probably seen a lot of it in your 60-year career. Sometimes you get a discovery site that might only produce for a year or two, or maybe ten years or a hundred, and then it’s gone.

Henry: Exactly—it’s crazy. Somebody could be eager to buy a certain stone, but suddenly it’s unavailable. Nobody has it, nobody asks for it, or maybe the mine’s empty.

Laurent: What are some examples of that? You were one of the first people to analyze Winza rubies (from Tanzania) and have a chance to study them scientifically, right?

Henry: Yes, that was just one of many new finds. And the main question there was origin determination—how to tell them apart from rubies of other origins.

Laurent: I guess you’ve dealt with the fact that sometimes the trade struggles to understand why origin determination can be so difficult. There can be disagreements between labs because nature is complex; there’s overlap. Is that how you see it?

Henry: Yes, and in addition, people don’t always want to accept a result that goes against their preconceived notion. They might have paid for a Burma ruby, so it must be from Burma—end of story!

Laurent: So you had to deliver bad news sometimes?

Henry: I’m glad I’m out of some of those challenging and tense situations now. It’s not fun. I even got a death threat once—actually, yeah, a death threat. Right here in Basel, a woman came by and said, “I’m sending my husband over,” and I checked his name and saw that in Belgium he’d already killed someone. She wanted her ruby to be considered Burmese.

Laurent: And what was her ruby, actually?

Henry: Not Burmese. It was heated, something else.

Laurent: And you took that death threat seriously?

Henry: Of course, immediately. I went to the police, and they made a note of it.

Laurent: And here you still are!

Henry: Yes, but you do start looking over your shoulder at every street corner when something like that happens. (laughs)

Laurent: Let me ask: do you have a favourite gemstone? You’ve seen so many—hundreds of thousands of stones in your life and career. Is there one that really stands out?

Henry: I love garnets, because they come in various colours, they form mixed crystals, and they’re easier to grasp scientifically. Take the pyralspite series, for instance—you can see how the colours result from variations in chemistry. I just think garnets are amazing.

Laurent: Which kinds? Demantoid, tsavorite—everything?

Henry: All of them, yeah. Demantoid, for example—one day, a good friend brought me a demantoid to look at, and I realized it had been heat-treated. I’d never seen a heat-treated demantoid before. Byssolite needles—actually a type of hornblende containing water—if you heat them enough, the water escapes and creates stress cracks. It’s mind-blowing. The first time I brought that up, nobody had written about it anywhere.

Laurent: So you’re the first one who described heat treatment of demantoid. That wasn’t really known, even though they were apparently doing it in Russia. Maybe still do.

Henry: Yeah, and if you’re just looking through a loupe in some random orientation, you might not notice those internal features or interpret them correctly.

Laurent: Why do they heat-treat demantoid, but not other garnets? What’s the point?

Henry: You can tweak the ratio of Fe2+ to Fe3+, which affects the colour.

Laurent: So you get a better colour out of it. And you’ve seen colourless garnets too, right? That’s what’s so fascinating about garnet—it can come in every colour.

Henry: Colourless is just a grossular garnet with nothing in it. And that’s what fascinates me—it’s explainable, too.

Laurent: It’s real detective work: you see the colour, then you can dive into the science behind it.

Laurent: I do. I love spinel, emerald, and pearls. That’s something we share—I did my PhD work on pearls because you were so passionate about them and introduced me to so many contacts. I discovered a whole new world of pearls. So what is it about pearls for you? They’re not geologically formed. Did it really start with that notion about a grain of sand and you just didn’t believe it, so you had to dig deeper?

Laurent: Right, SSEF was founded in 1972 as a foundation. George Bosshart was the first director, and then you became the second. How did SSEF grow so big over the past 50 years? You played a huge part in that.

Laurent: And you always insisted on the highest scientific standards. You never settled for the status quo—you wanted more data, more knowledge, more understanding. That was a big factor, too.

Henry: Yeah, that kind of outlook can really give you options.

Henry: And you were never lazy as a scientist—you, Henry Hänni, always kept pushing.

Laurent: That’s what inspires so many people who’ve worked with you—just staying curious. And you’re still curious today about new stones, new localities. There’s plenty more to discover, right? How do you see the future of gemology?

Henry: Hard to say. I think there’ll be an even bigger gap between specialists and generalists.

Henry: That’s a mystery to me. I’m not so familiar with the buyer’s side because there’s always the filter of the jeweler or the stone dealer in between. I really don’t know the end consumers personally.

Laurent: Another thing: a lot of people know you as Dr. Hänni or Professor Hänni. You’ve lectured all over the world, published in every gem journal.

Henry: I think it’s great that you bring it up, but…

Laurent: I do, because there are so many people in the trade and the gem community worldwide who know your name. I was in the US recently, and when I mentioned SSEF, several people asked me, “How’s Henry Hänni doing?” Your name is still widely recognized. What don’t people know about you?

Henry: Probably that I’ve been divorced twice, for instance—that my work often took priority over family. And yet my daughter still loves me, which is wonderful. She’s a great daughter.

Henry: She helps me out now that I have a harder time walking, seeing and hearing.

Laurent: Thinking about the next generation or the one after that, do you think there’s still more to discover?

Henry: How was it at first? Telephone…

Laurent: Telephone, yeah—or in places like Madagascar or Burma, there probably weren’t phones at all. So you just had to go there yourself.

Henry: Yes, and I did.

Laurent: You’ve been pretty much everywhere, right? Almost every country.

Henry: Not everywhere. I’ve never been to West Africa, but I have been to South Africa and East Africa.

Henry: No, come on!

Laurent: Yes, really. It’s going to be called the “Henry A. Hänni Scholarship.” Part of the inspiration came from what we’ve been discussing.

Henry: That’s almost too great an honour.

Laurent: You’ve shown tremendous curiosity about these countries, forged lots of wonderful contacts, and there’s another topic we haven’t covered as much: you’ve done so much teaching, always sharing your knowledge with me, with everyone—from Mogok to people all over the world.

Henry: I’m glad we can talk about it like this, because Michael never brought that up—he always had to ensure I didn’t cast a shadow over him. And now, apparently, that’s in the past. How do you deal with this stuff? I might not have a lot of time left, so this news makes me really happy.

Laurent: And why has teaching been so important to you? Some people keep their knowledge to themselves.

Henry: Because it bothers me when people talk nonsense. You know, “when the shit hits the fan”

Laurent: Then what happens?

Henry: Then it flies everywhere. If someone starts saying pearls form around a grain of sand, you have to clean up this nonsense one bit at a time. I wanted to prevent that. And I wanted to show that people can understand these concepts if they attend a course, see what we’re talking about, refresh their high-school chemistry or physics, and pass on to their grandkids that, hey, this stuff matters.

Laurent: So you’d say you’re only a good scientist if you can explain a theory to kids?

Henry: I’ve tried to do that.

Laurent: And you did it really well.

Laurent: So, for example, how does an emerald form? There’s chromium, there’s beryl—how does that happen?

Henry: In Pakistan, I once stood on the boundary between a pegmatite and an ultrabasic rock. In a reaction zone maybe 15 to 20 centimetres wide, there are emeralds. It’s incredible to see this firsthand. The ultrabasic rock released a bit of chromium, which migrated into the pegmatite, where there was already lithium and beryllium.

Laurent: That’s what makes emeralds so rare—there aren’t that many places where that particular combination occurs.

Henry: Yes, although as the years go by, we discover more. When I started out, ruby was far rarer than it is now. I’d say 30 or 40 new ruby sources have opened up since then.

Laurent: And these days, you’re enjoying cutting cabochons, just having fun with stones?

Laurent: Do you think your unconventional path—starting as a workshop assistant at the mineralogical institute, preparing samples—rather than going the direct academic route, helped you keep things communicate scientific principles in simple ways for people?

Henry: I think it’s just a knack, being able to explain things in a certain way.

Laurent: But have you always had that knack, or did you work at it?

Henry: No idea, to be honest. Were you in my lectures?

Laurent: Yes, I attended your lectures at the university around 2003–2004.

Henry: Were they good lectures?

Laurent: They sure were—that’s how I got interested in gemology! I was studying geology and wasn’t entirely sure, then I saw your gemmology class with all your travel photos and stories. It was both scientific and very human—you showed pictures of pearl farms in Tahiti, of Mogok, Colombia, Sri Lanka…

Henry: Flash, flash, flash…

Laurent: Yes, I realised gemology was a nice blend of science and travel and meeting people. Gems are really a microcosm of the world. Analysing diamonds—or any stone—can help you understand how the earth was formed, and at the same time there’s so much more to it. With pearls, I was amazed at the idea of finding DNA in them, dating them, looking at corals—there’s always more to discover if you collaborate with specialists from other fields. And it all started when I attended your lectures. I saw it wasn’t just abstract—it’s got its own logic, and it’s exciting, colourful. So thank you for that, Henry. Thanks so much for this conversation, Henry.

Henry: Thank you for the interview and for the good news.

Laurent: Here are your stones back—take them home and keep up the good cutting, Henry!

Laurent: Our guest was Professor Dr. Henri Hänni, a pioneering gemologist and a mentor to many in the field, myself included. That was another Hidden Gem by SSEF, the Swiss Gemological Institute. Thank you for listening.