Step right up ladies and gentlemen. You sir. Come a little closer.
Right here ma’am. Don’t be shy. Inch in a bit. In the back of my
wagon folks… I have a book on the Secrets of Gems. No hokum pokum
my friends. No fiddledee-faddle. This is the truth. La verit=e
messieurs-dames. Die wahrheit meine damen und herren.
You don’t have to buy. No no. Not here. Not today. The info is free
as the zephyrs through the trees. Yessiree. This is a tale of gems.
This is their secret. Question. By a show of hands… who out there
thinks it’s difficult to find real gems? Let’s count. One. Two.
Seven. Thirty. All of you I see. Yes… well… you’re all wrong my
friends. Finding gems is easy.
Did I ever tell you about Frickenstein and Frackleberg. Two jewelers.
Frickenstein was a tough cookie. He roared. When he spoke he
bellowed. He pounded the table. I want them to fear me. In my shop
I’m Genghis Khan. I’m Ivan the Terrible. Mussolini. Mxyzptlk. He
viewed himself as an intellectual and a tyrant. And I’m proud of it.
His workers cowered at his presence. They called him Frick for short.
Frackleberg was another story. Mild-mannered. Soft-spoken. Sensitive.
Kind. A high caliber jeweler. Skilled my friends. He had no peers.
Almost timid in manner… shy… and fearless. He spoke with a heavy
accent from the old country. Few had seen what he had seen. Few had
known what he had known. They call him Frack.
Frick and Frack looked alike. No no. They were not ice-skaters. They
were not a comedy team from Switzerland. They simply had similar
names. And they simply had similar physiognomies.
I knew them both ladies and gentlemen. I did work for them. Frick
always owed me money. He took forever to pay and always paid in part.
Frack paid on the spot.
Forty Seventh Street was full of Fricks and Fracks. Diamonds and
pearls and rubies and sapphires. Spinels and zircons and synthetics
of all sizes and shapes. Yessirree my compatriots. They were all out
there. I saw Frack one day in the hallway. Frick won’t pay me I said.
So ask, said Frick. I’m embarrassed, I said. I was 27 years old. When
I was 27 folks, I was 16. Frick took my hand between his. Mr. Mark,
he said in his heavy accented tones. If they’re not embarrassed not
to pay you, you don’t have to be embarrassed to ask.
Frick’s words stay with me to this day. He still guides me. Frick was
a gem. He was a diamond. He was an emerald and a sapphire and a ruby.
Frack eventually paid me. I hounded him till he did. And then it was
always only in part. Frack was a spinel. He was a zircon. He was a
synthetic.
So here’s the thing of it all. Gems are easy to find ladies and
gentlemen. They’re like grains of sands at the beach. They’re there
for the picking. But you have to be careful. The trick and the secret
of gems is that you have to know that that which you have found was
indeed a gem and not a synthetic.
Want to test yourselves? Want to see Frick and Frack? Go. Look. You
know where. And tell me which is real and which is synthetic. Which
is Frick. And which is Frack.
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits…may I
direct you to my home page at http://www.tyler-adam.com where you
will scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that
says Current Tidbits. Click it… and you will see represented on our
pages… a gem and a fake.
And there ya have it. That’s it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark