He Sells Gems for a Living | Avi the Gem Guy Rahmanim Digital Social Hour #92

Have you ever gotten scammed like they sold you a fake gem?

It's really common in this business, man.

I sit down and there's just a line of dealers, miners that just like line out the door.

They crowd you, like throw gems in your face, like you just have to negotiate on the spot.

But I'm saying if you're on a date, like yeah,

yeah, it's like that guy with the diamond test.

A lot of jewelry owners get in sketchy situations with robberies, people trying to take their.

Has that ever happened with you?

Not with me personally.

No.

I know, like, my dad's been in a car chase or two back in the day.

Oh, yeah.

Welcome to the Digital Social Hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly, here with my co-host, Wayne Lewis.

What up, what up?

And our guest today, Abi Ramanim.

How's it going?

What's going on?

What's going on?

Good.

Thanks for having me, guys.

Absolutely.

Las Vegas.

The Gem King.

Thank you very much.

The Gem King.

That's what some people call me.

Yeah, I see.

Talk to me about how you got into that.

So it actually started off with a family business.

So my dad immigrated to the States,

you know, pretty much nothing as most immigrants do.

His uncle was in the business, so we just gave my dad some gems.

He's like, you know, go sell these.

Eventually, it uh kind of became like a you know more established business.

Um, I didn't know I was gonna go into it, like from you know, my childhood.

I was kind of like working summers, like doing like, you know, like bitch work and stuff, like sorting out like diamond melee, like small tiny diamonds and stuff.

Um, but like my sophomore year of college, I, uh,

you know, he was like diagnosed with uh dementia, so I knew I kind of wanted to go into it full time.

So, yeah, I went on a trip with him overseas to do like gemstone buying.

We buy most of our gemstones from like Thailand, Sri Lanka.

So, I went with him when he was like starting to

get some symptoms of dementia, and I just kind of gathered all the info, watched him negotiate, see what kind of gems we were buying.

And then after that, it was just solo

from there.

Yeah.

So, you guys cut the gems too?

They actually come in a rock, right?

Yeah, so they come in a rough form.

We don't actually cut them.

We usually buy them already cut.

Oh, okay.

Because

we can cut them here, but it's just more expensive in the States to get them shaped.

We have a guy doing repairs and stuff on gems, but

no.

Cutting them, it's mostly overseas.

So what's the difference between a gem and a crystal?

So

a gem is, it can be a crystal,

but not all gems are crystals.

So,

yeah, like a quartz crystal, if it's, you know, a nice looking crystal, it could be considered a gem.

But,

you know, there's like different types of gems that aren't crystals, like pearls, for example.

Those could be considered gems.

Oh, pearls can be considered gems?

Why?

Yeah.

There's organic and inorganic types of gems.

So organic is like pearls,

like...

Coral, things like that.

Inorganic would be like sapphires, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, What's your favorite type of gem to own?

I'm a sapphire guy.

You like sapphires?

You're a sapphire guy?

I like sapphires.

They're cool.

Just my favorite color is blue.

Yeah, sapphire, blue.

Yeah.

Yeah, I see a lot of jewelers actually play around with the sapphires and custom pieces and stuff, too.

Yeah, they're fun, man.

Like, so most jewelers, like, you know, everyone knows diamonds.

Gemstones are like a whole different world.

Does gems get the same respect as diamonds?

Depends who you ask.

Depends who you ask.

Yeah, diamonds have, you know, the marketing behind it.

Everyone knows that a diamond is expensive, it shines.

And diamonds are really cool.

Like, I mean, they're like super shiny and stuff, you know, but

I just like colored stones better.

Like, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, it's just like

I don't know.

Diamonds are like

everything's like

the same, you know?

The D D color is like the best.

Like, it just get like, I don't know, color stones, it's like you could could have a preference of royal blue, or you could have a preference of like a light-colored, you know, sapphire.

Um, so it's like, I don't know.

So, I've heard the diamond industry is kind of like a monopoly.

Is the gem industry like that, where there's just a few key players at the top?

No, no, not at all.

Um,

most of our gems that we buy overseas are from like small mining operations, mostly in Sri Lanka.

Um, and it's very small-scale.

Like, it's uh, you know, these

mines are like 10 meters meters deep, 10 meters out.

And yeah, like different people could own different parts of the mine, rented.

And

interesting.

Yeah, it's pretty small scale.

Because the diamond industry is a monopoly.

Oh, it's this.

I mean, they're killing over that.

I mean, this is the same thing.

Are they killing over gems too?

No, no, I wouldn't say so.

Like, there's always conflict with some, I'm sure.

just like with anything that's like high value that could be like traded easily.

But yeah, like with the diamond diamond industry, it's, I, I don't think it still is a monopoly.

I think it's,

I think, so the big companies like the beers that everyone talk about that used to have like a large portion of the market share.

Um, I think they have like 25 to 30%, if I'm not mistaken.

Um, so it's still like a, what do you call it, like oligopoly?

You know, there's like only a few key players.

Um,

but yeah, it's like,

I actually don't, like, I don't know.

Maybe it still is.

Maybe it still is.

What's the most expensive gem you've ever seen or what is the the highest price for a gem like the most expensive you've ever seen or it could I mean there's there's no limit to like how expensive it could be

yeah like what's the most expensive you've heard of or seen yourself with your own eyes or held yeah so a few years ago at the I was actually here in Vegas for like the gem convention yeah um and there was this one booth that had

I mean like enormous untreated unheated sapphires that are just like 50 plus carats wow and I held five of them in my hand that I think equaled like 10 million bucks holy cat

just in my hand like five of them together I mean these are like you know the purest purest like huge like to get a huge crystal like that with little imperfections with a saturated color like that it's I mean it's like wow incredibly rare so where would you go about gem hunting is there anywhere in the US you could gem hunt yeah yeah so in the US there's I actually haven't done it yeah um sounds fun right yeah yeah i mean how would how would that work though you go underground right and you yeah so there's different places i know there's a quartz mine in arkansas that you can go to it's like open to the public and you just like walk around like you know like i don't know smack some walls and find some like huge purple crystals but those aren't like gem gems there actually are some sapphire mines in montana um and i have made some connections i haven't gone though i would love to i would love to that'd be some great content right there.

Yeah, I would, for sure.

But yeah, it's like,

yeah, it's mostly like smaller scale in Montana as well.

But yeah, I mean, some of the gems that come out of there are really cool.

Yeah.

And how are the margins?

Because I know with watches, they're pretty thin.

Is it similar with gems?

It depends.

It depends.

Usually it's like

if it's

usually the smaller the item is, the higher the margin is.

The more expensive it is, the slimmer the margin is.

Kind of like most things.

Like you can't like, you know, double your money on like a $50,000 stone.

You know, it's just like, it's just not, you know.

I would say they're better than diamonds and watches.

Oh, it's better.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Watches are thin, man.

Very thin.

And the problem with watches is the price can fluctuate.

Like, they went down a lot recently.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the watch.

Yeah.

Especially the iced out ones.

Those are like hard to sell.

The values and I they drill them.

Yeah.

Take away away all the value.

Every time they drill a hole, drill, drill, the watch becomes really light, frail.

Yeah.

And, I mean, it's no value there.

I just like them, though.

Yeah.

No, they look sick.

Yeah.

The thing is, yeah, like the purists or whatever, I mean, they're always going to be snobby.

Like, yo, you ruined the watch.

You literally ruined that watch.

It was beautiful before you did that.

Yeah, like, if it looks good, like, who can, you know?

Yeah.

So, I mean, subjective.

So, yeah.

Now, if you look at a price chart history of gems, what would it look like starting from, you know, 1900s, i guess it pretty much i mean it pretty much only goes up kind of um i mean it just depends like if there's a new gem that gets introduced to the market like for example um i forget how long ago i think in the 70s there was a big pocket of tanzanites found in tanzania um and what

tanzanite yeah it's uh

it's like a bluish purplish color with really like rich color is that rare um so that's the thing so when i've never heard of a tanzanite you haven't heard about yeah it's like it's relatively common.

They sell it a lot on cruise ships and stuff.

They mark it up like crazy.

Yeah, you never hear people say, yeah, this is tanzanite.

Yeah.

It's not as popular as the big three, like sapphires, rubies, and emeralds.

But yeah, so when they first got introduced to the market,

it was like a craze over.

Everyone's like, oh, this is like amazing.

Super expensive.

They were, I think, competing with sapphires in price.

But eventually kind of like as they found bigger and bigger deposits of it, then the price kind of just stabilized.

So it kind of went down.

And that's kind of,

I would say that's pretty common with

like most things that come to the market.

But I mean, to find a new gem deposit like that, it's pretty rare, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, they just kind of like just climb in price because

less and less of them get, you know, introduced to the market and like supply and demand.

There's a finite amount of it on the world.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yep.

Interesting.

So I hear you're pretty good with negotiations.

How does that work?

That's your forte, right?

Yeah.

Coming down on the price.

Pretty much.

Pretty much.

Meet where your price is.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, it's the type of industry where it's very traditional in that way.

It's just like, person to person, you're negotiating every single stone or parcel that you buy it's it's like kind of goes back to just like the basics of like business you know you want to buy it for as little as possible and then sell it for as you know as much as you can before you get undercut by you know but yeah what's an example of like someone who came in there and they were trying to you know

highball you and you they they walked out of there like what just happened

that's funny

literally every person

every person i deal with because like you know they

they see that, you know, they watch me on social media and stuff.

And they try to come in and beat you.

They try to come in and, like, if they see I buy something at a certain price, I mean, they can't tell the clarity, color, and all that just from, like, my video.

You know, you really have to get up close and personal with a stone to see it.

So they come in expecting, like, oh, he's about to pay $3,000 for a one-carat emerald.

And I'm just like, look at it.

I'm like, I'm sorry, but...

It's garbage.

But, you know, it depends.

If someone really comes in

offering a fair price and I accept it, you know, I'm not.

So what was the highest someone came in at and what was the lowest you bought it at?

And did the transaction happen?

Like, damn, well.

I would say most, I mean, most stones that I negotiate, the transaction doesn't happen.

But, you know, with every person, if a person comes in with, you know,

50, 100 stones, and odds are good, I'll buy one or two of them.

But yeah, that's like things that I'm interested in.

So the highest,

I don't know.

I mean, just off the top of the head, like someone came in the other day with, they came from Colombia asking for like,

I don't know, like 5,000 a carat for a stone.

We ended up settling on like 1,500 per carat.

Wow.

Yeah.

So it's like,

they wanted how much?

5,000 per carat.

So we, we price things per carat, which is a carat is one-fifth of a gram.

So we kind of weigh it, you know, per mass, kind of like, you know, buying, you know, bananas from a supermarket.

Um, and yeah, so they got down to 1500 per carrot, 1,500 per carrot from like 5,000 a carrot.

How did you do that?

What if the diamonds wasn't as good as you thought they were?

He, you know, people come in just wanting as much as possible, so they started a crazy number, and then you know, I

offered.

I'm like, if you're wanting to sell me that, I will sell it to you for a quarter of the price.

And I show them my own inventory.

You know, that's like always like a way of, you know, kind of putting things into reality perspective you know yeah exactly so um

yeah i don't yeah i don't know and were you always good at negotiating or did it take a while because a lot of people suck at it so like did you develop it naturally or yeah so i was so my first trip overseas uh for a buying trip was you know with my dad um and i just kind of like watched and i just like you know saw how like it works um

and then yeah after that was my first solo trip but i would say like

a really good way to learn how to negotiate well is to just go to like Southeast Asia and just like negotiate.

Cause everything there is kind of like open market.

Yeah, like an open market where they sell like, you know, like knockoff like, I don't know, DZs and stuff.

Like you just kind of like work on like the back and forth.

You just kind of like know how to read the person, see how they react.

You match their energy and just kind of,

I don't know.

I've never been like

scared to negotiate.

I know some people like run away from it.

Yeah, they run away from it.

Because most things, we're not used to it here.

Like, most things are negotiable.

You're not walking to a store.

When it comes to buying stuff, I'm all, I mean, whether it's not in the store, but when it comes to jewelry and stuff.

Oh, yeah, bro.

I'm going to go back and forth.

I go hard at garage sales and flea markets.

Even though I'm saving like $2, I just love negotiating.

I mean, you got to kind of try your luck a little bit.

Right, right, exactly.

It doesn't hurt to ask.

Nah, because I mean, cheaper is better.

Do you believe in they have to make the first offer or are you comfortable saying a price first?

I don't like it when so I always ask what their price is just to see where their heads at with it.

Yeah.

If they tell me make an offer, then I just say something ridiculously low and then that's when they say their first offer.

You know, it's like you're not going to come into like my store and just be like,

like, tell me, give me an offer for something.

Like, I want to see where they're at, see if like, you know,

what they're trying to, if they're trying to rip me off or you know

have you ever gotten scammed like they sold you a fake gem

have i i mean it's it's really common in this business man like it's really common so you just have to be careful um

i've definitely bought things so it overseas in tri lanko what i do is it's like an open market yeah um i sit down and there's just a line of dealers miners that just like line out the door they crowd you like throw gems in your face like you just have to negotiate on the spot.

Luckily, like what I do is,

you know, I send everything to a lab first to verify.

And then if somebody comes back, you know, not what the result that I expected, then I just don't pay for it.

Like they keep the gem and I kind of work with a broker that way.

But in the store,

I really,

I mean, first of all, you have to...

know, I kind of have to like know the person a little bit.

There are people that walk in and then you have to do the testing on the gems, like make sure it's not synthetic,

make sure there's no treatments.

But I mean, it's really common in this business.

There's a lot of treatments that could that are hard to detect.

So, treatments make it a lot brighter, shiny.

Yeah, they can improve the color, clarity.

It takes away from the value, right?

But on the eye, it's there.

But when you test it out, it's like, no, this bus has been treated, so it's not even value to you.

Exactly.

It's like watchers.

Yeah, but let me ask you a question.

So,

you guys want to treat the gem yourself, or you don't want to treat the gems?

Well, it depends.

There's treatments that are acceptable in the trade.

Like sapphires and rubies, they're heat-treated.

Right.

And that's like a large percentage.

Like 80 to 90% of sapphires on the market are heat treated.

So

they pretty much take the raw gem, put it in like an oven for an extended period of time, and it makes the color more saturated and kind of melts down some inclusions.

But yeah, I mean, the biggest thing is disclosure of treatments.

They don't tell you.

Depend.

Yeah, if they're like a if they're a bad dealer, you know, then yeah, they won't tell you treatments.

And that's when you have to just know your shit and look at the gem and just know if it's synthetic or natural.

That's the biggest thing.

Like,

yeah, just knowing if something's like real or not.

Yeah.

A lot of jewelry owners get in sketchy situations with robberies, people trying to take their shit.

Has that ever happened with you?

Not with me personally.

No.

I know, like, my dad's been in a car chase or two back in the day.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It's a common thing, you know, but we, you know, we have like our safety measures in place.

Like, we don't leave the shop with anything on us ever, ever.

We ship everything fully insured, like armored shipping services.

Wow.

Yeah, so it's like, and we're, you know, we're on like a higher up floor of our jewelry building.

So, yeah.

Wow.

she stayed protected yeah i mean they have to bro they got something that everybody wants that's has a lot of value to it especially if you get one of the ones that's uncut or pure yeah yeah it's a lot of money but can it get caught like as far as with the serial numbers and and and like

this some gemstones yeah yeah like if it's like diamonds uh if it's graded by the gia or like some other labs that have laser inscriptions on the girdle which is like the outer diameter of the diamond um and you could report that stolen or something, kind of like reporting a stolen Rolex, but um,

you know, those could always be like polished off.

Yeah, you're not getting that back.

You're not getting that back.

Yeah, it's it's like an unfortunate thing, and like, you know, I know

we have been like,

you know,

not robbed in the past, but there have been like people that, I don't know, like did some stuff.

Like,

custom stuff.

You do custom jewelry too, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Custom jewelry.

So you can customize any watch, any chain, earrings, whatever a person needs.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

So we just started getting into that recently.

Yeah.

It's been like, it's been a fun kind of

not side gig, but it's like, you know, we're really integrated it into our business.

Because we have the gemstones.

We have like, you know, the meat of the jewelry.

So yeah, we work with custom, like custom CAD designers and stuff.

So anything you want, we can make.

Seems like gems are a pretty safe way to store your money.

If you buy it right, yeah.

Yeah.

Like when we buy the right one, so yeah.

So the big three probably, right?

Like, right.

Are they easy to sell, though?

Once, like, let's say if he had two million dollars in stones and gems.

Yeah.

Is that easier?

Is that easy for him to sell?

Turn, turn into cash.

Or most people would stray away for more.

Is that the problem?

That's the thing.

So it's, you have to buy it.

It's not like gold where there's a set market price.

It's just kind of whatever you buy it.

Like you have to negotiate the price.

It's there.

There's no like standardized price for gemstones.

There are for diamonds, kind of.

But yeah, gemstones, it's

you would have to buy it at the lowest like market rate, which is hard to do.

It's just hard to do.

And then you would have to find a way to liquidate it.

Because if you go try to sell it to, you know, like a jeweler or pawn shop, they're going to offer you like 25% of what, you know, 50% of what it's worth.

So you would need a way to sell it.

But, you know, if you buy a high-quality gemstone, like a

five-carat Colombian Emerald, no oil, you know, it could be a good way to store your money.

You just have to make sure you buy it.

Yeah, I would buy it.

I know how to sell it.

I would buy a Gold Brick.

Gold brick for sure.

Yeah.

That's pretty safe.

That's easy to say easy because the bank will buy that.

A bank will.

A bank will.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

I didn't know how to buy a Gold Brick.

Yeah.

For sure.

Gold is very standardized.

Yeah.

It's has a market price.

You buy it at spot price or a little bit less.

And then if it goes up 10% you're pretty much good.

You're pretty much good.

You're pretty much good.

And what about the grading?

Is it similar to diamonds like VVS VS?

With gemstones?

Yeah.

No.

No.

It's a different grade?

Kind of.

So with clarity-wise,

it's not like a standardized VVS, VS, SI.

Yeah, because

how many different grades are there?

So many.

Yeah.

Let's see.

There's flawless, internally flawless, VVS1, VVS2.

So there's grades under the grade.

So there's SI, there's SI1, SI2, SI3.

Yeah.

So there's nine.

It's probably nine on GIA scale.

So

there's nine, but what is the internal grade?

So it's probably, it's three internal grades under each grade, right?

So, yeah, so there's nine, there's nine clarity grades.

Classes, right?

Kind of.

And then there's four

classes.

Like the flawless internally flawless.

Four classes under each grade.

Wow, so there's 36 grades.

Probably, bro.

Because it goes here and then it goes here.

It goes here and then it goes here.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, there's nine grades by the GIA.

There's nine grades.

But yeah, like VS, when someone says VS, it's just, yeah, VS1, VS2.

Then there's VBS.

Right.

That's totally different from VS.

Right.

So for gems, what is it?

How many are there?

There isn't a scale.

Oh, there's no scale?

There's no scale.

Oh, it's just like, you know, you could compare it to a diamond and be like, this would be a

VS if it were a diamond, but there's not, there's kind of not that thing.

So, you need a lot of skill then, because you got to be able to see like imperfections, scratches.

Yeah, I kind of always have been like in that mindset of like, if it's eye clean, meaning you can't see anything with the naked eye, then like it's good.

It's good.

I feel that.

Yeah, because who's going to pull up a microscope on your

jewelry?

Some jewelers do.

They want to know what they're getting.

That's true.

If you want to know what's there, yeah.

Yeah.

But I'm saying if you're on a date, like,

yeah,

King, like, bro, give me a boy.

I don't mean to break your guys up.

Let me see your shit.

Nice.

It's like that guy with the diamond tester.

Walking around.

Yeah.

Make it off my chain.

Is there one of those testers for gems?

Probably not.

Not really.

Gems are, dude, they're just...

complicated.

You just have to know what you're looking at.

And they're not a lot of people walking around with gems either, right?

Girls are, right?

Yeah, it's like, it's not common to see them.

They are common, but they're the most common, uncommon piece of jewelry because people really want diamonds.

Yeah, they really popular recently, though.

Like, I've been selling a decent amount, I would say, like

maybe 20-25% of like engagement ring sales that I've been doing have been gemstones.

Why?

Why?

Emeralds, sapphires, people just.

I mean, bro, he's getting millions of views.

Yeah, so he's starting a little comeback, I think.

Yeah, gems.

Yeah, dang, they're on the rise.

So people are getting their wedding rings, and but that does that any have anything to do with uh birthstones in a way where the

birthstone color?

It can.

Because gems are birthstones, right?

Yeah.

So, like, birthstones, that's like a popular thing for

jewelry in general.

I would say, like, for engagement rings, though, you kind of want something that's durable enough to withstand daily wear.

Because diamonds are

very durable.

They're like a 10 out of 10 on the most hardness scale, meaning the only thing that could scratch a diamond is another diamond.

Sapphires are a nine on that scale, so one step below.

But yeah, they they can get some abrasion after wearing them for a while.

Emeralds are even less durable, um, so like they can get abraded after a while.

But for the most part, like, if you're careful with it, you should be fine.

That's cool.

Yeah, I always freak out about scratching my watches, bro.

Yeah, yeah, they scratch pretty easily, especially the metal ones.

You brush them against something, oh, yeah.

The APs, they scratch like easily.

You touch it on a table, it's scratch.

I'm like, Are you serious?

Yeah, it's because it's polished, it's fine, it's very, very fine polish, and it's like the they thin out out the metal so much to where it's like almost flawless yeah so that's why every little scratch literally yeah what's the most you've spent on a gem

he's a negotiator bro you don't spend why you walked out of here

five bucks

um he went one in fifty i gave him ten dollars get out of here i don't know like tens of thousands.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's still a lot for a gem, man.

Yeah.

Awesome, bro.

But you know you're gonna move it.

Like, or do you, like, how often are you turning inventory?

So that's the thing.

Some gems, they could sit for years.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's, it's like, if I was turning it over every

year, I would be, you know,

on a yacht right now.

But it's, yeah, it's like, it's the type of, like, gemstones, especially, it's the type of thing that it can sit for a while.

Because the...

The way the kind of gemstone industry works, it's kind of,

it's a very,

it's a unique business where we, and diamonds are kind of similar too, where like we're a wholesaler, right?

So a retailer comes to me and be like, they're like, hey, I have a customer for a two-karat Ruby.

And I'm like, okay.

So I loan it to them.

I have to trust them that they're not going to screw me over.

I loan it to them.

They show their customer.

If their customer wants it, then they pay me.

So I loan it to them.

That's why it's an industry that's just built on trust.

You know, it's like, and there are a lot of good eggs that go bad.

But yeah, like you need to have solid references.

You have to have a good reputation.

You have to do many years.

There's like certain credit limits that you set with certain people.

Wow.

And yeah.

Yeah.

So it's a business just built on reputation and trust.

Why should people buy a gym over

not technically over a diamond, but why would you suggest a gym per se a diamond?

Like if they were in a shopping mall, I'd say, like, what's your, why should people buy gems i just think they're more fun i don't know they're they're unique it's like uh you know just throwing some color into your life you know it's like i i like the color blue like i'm wearing like a there's a tiny blue sapphire in here but um yeah i don't know it's uh it's personal preference if someone prefers the look of a diamond they could go for that um if someone prefers you know if you want something to match your hat you can wear like a ruby in your pinky you know just you know just it's fun obviously i've learned a lot about gems today man i appreciate it yeah of course any closing comments

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gemstones baby gemstones yeah no it's uh yeah no it's it's a fun industry like uh

yeah i love what he's doing man yeah his youtube negotiations inspire me bro they get me hyped up yeah i'm trying to go to garage sales and save some money

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Digital Social Hour.

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