I am an average lapidary- and most of the people in any of the gem
and mineral or rock clubs to which I belong are also average or above
average in terms of skill and making a business out of the art. While
I may have missed the initial point regarding investment in a
lapidary set up and recouping it (ROI):
I lost everythinhg I owned in Hurricane Katrina, I have almost
entirely replaced the bulk of my studio’s equipment, tools, business
equipment related to the studio and also most of our school’s equip.
As for the lapidary equipment- I spent collectively $4800 thus far on
some new some used cabbing and faceting equipment, and perhaps $2000.
on gem rough, and have in 3 years, trained a particularly adept
student to facet with at least acceptable result (* the entire
training I estimate would be valued at $35,000 over 24 months and the
student now repays me in work exchange for the skill and studio space
and any materials we purchase jointly he rettaining his and I mainly
selling my portions wholesale or setting the materials in jewelry
that is then sold as a majority, in one off pieces custom designed
and not inexpensive).
From the processed rough I have generated over $60,000 in profit
from a single 1/4 kilo of parcel of alexandrite rough, some african
mined tanzanite material and drilling (and in some cases polishing a
bit) candian various fancy (g-m colours) and fruit salad coloured raw
diamonds for wholesale over a period of 18 months (to date). From
Cabbing, i have sold over $5,000 of covellite material from a 2 kilo
parcel given to me in exchange for 30% of the finished material. I
alsoupply a school in the southeastern US and one in Great Britain
with cabachons that they use in classes (stone setting) - it saves
them money and class time providing students the material on site as
opposed to having students bring in god knows what to learn basic
techniques on and somewhat standardizes their lesson plans… I must
disagree with the statement that "one never will recoup the
investement of lapidary even as a hobby, the potential to produce
salable material is a given, and with experience and a marketing
strategy (even if it’s letting someone else in the rock club handle
your material for sale on an on-line auction site) the possibility or
rapidly recovering and generating a profit from the less than $5,000
it takes to set up a relatively small basic operation in a few
months and with a few good parcels of material that are in demand
from whatever market you choose to target when approaching purchasing
the material in the first place!
However, If you buy material which is produced in abundance and
cheaper in foreign factory situations, then you are approaching the
entire ROI situation incorrectly - that is, not assessing how to
maximize your initial outlay and time it takes to learn the art of
cabbing or faceting. If you considered all the possibilities and
identified your target market from the beginning (if you want to
profit from the hobby, or make it a business) and already have the
skills it takes to produce quality products then in a few months
time you should see a good profit and have covered your initial
investment.
That is the consensus and experience of the lapidaries i presented
this topic to at a meeting of our gem and mineral club Monday
evening. They all said that with the skill already learned and even
faceting with tools such as the "lap Lap " a small lap sized indexed
unit that allows you to facet stones while watching television!, or
riding a train or bus as it’s compact size, manual operation and low
mess (since ideally you have pre-formed your rough or it requires
nothing more than some basic shaping with a dremel or flex shaft) and
relatively inexpensive price tag unless you make one yourself- allows
you to take it anywhere and do it like one would practice knitting as
a hobbyist.
All of the experienced lapidaries that have equipment dating to the
50’s or earlier in some cases say they wouldn’t part with their
machinery for newer and more compact models or ‘swap-top’ systems and
those realitvely new lapidaries said they love their pricey but
condensed all-in-one units just the same- Unanimously though,
everyone said that recouping their initial outlay was accomplished in
under a year once they had the basic pricioples down and profit
turned once they added fancier cuts to their repertoires. Some of
them even quit their jobs of at least, over 20 years because they are
making more at selling on-line and to a specific clientele (one man
supplies a large jewelry supply vendor with Maine tourmaline and
another supplies by contract and approval a large jewelry
manufacturing concern with all the Opal material he or his wife can
cut, and another supplies a few nationally recognized jewelry
artisans, and 3 of that group of people having quit their “day jobs”
sell on-line as well citing that people gravitate to the less
polished photography and potential of good deals from small scale
home produced material no matter with the price or, in some cases,
the reserve on a stone, or parcel may be.
I personally have gotten some of my better quality opal from auction
sites posted for sale by 'average lapidaries (in fact that is how I
met my now main supplier of australian oriigin opal and hyalite from
NC and N GA. as well as Montana sapphires, Maine tourmaline, matched
sets of western us agate material and Mexican fire agate and faceted
bytownite that i resell online and to individuals. Sites like facet
rough.com allow even ‘average lapidaries’ access to high quality
material at a low price and then after processing the gemmy material
is sought after by jewelry designers around the world. So whomever
said
Rocks and gems are a great hobby, but the average lapidary will
never get back the money they put into it. must not have a good
idea
of the cost over return possible, or is buying way overpriced rough
without a market in which to sell it- or they haven’t the
experience, drive or whatever you’d call it to make the hobby into a
business- a quite profitable one at that and a lifelong skill that
can be utilized in any number of ways toward making it a right
livelihood… rer
Also, dark lighting