Totally off-topic: my little brother's new auction series has begun. (He sells investment, jewelry, and collector gemstones at wholesale. His stones routinely appraise for 2x–4x what he sells them for. Not to brag, but Charlie is such a gem nerd that in high school he spent half his senior year interning at the Gemology Department at the Smithsonian Institution. He had already taught himself to facet by that time.)
For security's sake, I need to mention that the stones are all kept in safety deposit boxes, not in his home, which adds an extra 2–3 days to the typical MTBS (mean time before shipping).
Photos by my niece, home for summer break! Enjoy.
Mike
Photography and gemstones, what could be better?
Posted by: Ruby | Wednesday, 15 July 2009 at 08:27 AM
Click the link and bought one. But I feel repeat my reading over this and some strange feel to this:
"Photos are taken with a Nikon CoolPix 950 and/or a Pentax Optio S or Optio WP. We have done our best to capture and display the color of the gemstone as accurately as possible, but different monitors and lighting conditions may change appearance. You may notice that we do not “enhance” our photos. What you see is what the camera sees."
a) The camera is not the best you can do - they are very old one may I say and I am not sure why two types; one gem can bought you a Canon SD880 or so or G10; ... really how old are these camera? Are they for under water type or something?
b) I guess the second para. meant it use jpeg with the default setting but it is small jpeg and hard to know what really is camera saw
May I suggest to cut the camera description as it does not add any value but decrease it. I do not see any other people describe what camera and what setting they use for their auction. If one believes in you one believes in you. If not, give them raw file is better than any jpeg. Also, use better camera / lighting may be more professional sound like.
Anyway, purchase my first gem from the web but I got it because I trust in Mike not his niece. May be if one goes to by other means it would be different.
Sorry, "Nikon 950 ..."
Posted by: Dennis Ng | Wednesday, 15 July 2009 at 09:04 AM
Thanks for the update, Mike. My wife makes jewelry in her free time and so I try to watch when your brother posts gems on Ebay. We currently don't have the money to buy anything but it's good to see what he sells, what values are and what to look for in gems.
I have Ebay set up to send me an email when your brother adds items to his store but I read this post before Ebay has even sent me anything. So much for technology. Mike Johnston is faster than software!
Posted by: JonA | Wednesday, 15 July 2009 at 12:19 PM
JonA - I would be happy to add you (or anyone else, for that matter) to the updates email list - just shoot me an email, to technofacet(at)mac(dot)com
-Charlie (Technofacet, Ltd.)
Posted by: Charles Johnston | Wednesday, 15 July 2009 at 02:47 PM