Click
here for
the current
time and date
in Bangkok.
Search for:
Please visit
the sites
below for a whole lot of
good information!
Tales
from Burma
Richard at
work in southwestern China during his search for the
elusive Yeti -- better known in the West as "The Abominable Snowman."
"The Diamond
Deal"
I arrived at the Rangoon airport
with a soft leather bag slung over each shoulder, having not had to check
any baggage. I went directly to immigration and on to customs. a woman inspector
sauntered up to the paint chipped table where my bags lay opened. Taking stock
of my three cameras, a half dozen lenses, and fifty rolls of film, she noticed
that I had an extra undeclared carton of cigarettes.
"Oh, you have too many cigarettes", she whispered apologetically. "Yes. I smoke
too much". I answered. "Oh, I smoke too", she replied. "Perhaps you would like
to try a few packs", I offered. "As you wish". she answered, stashing a few
packs below the shelf. Zipping my bags shut, the customs exam was evidently
finished, and I strolled out to the rusting taxi stand.
>From the crunmbling rusted shell of my taxi window, an unseen wind from a
passing truck lifted a flattened feather light dog corpse off the roiling
pavement. It was April, the hot season. I went down to Barr St. and stepped into
a tea shop, sitting down on a low wooden stool. I looked into the street as
lanky sinuous men and expansive hipped women, both clad in tight fitting
sarongs, filed by the doorway, clutching torn packages, puffing on long
cheroots, steeped in their ambitions, offering no more than an occasional side
glance. The Burmese sat and drank tea which they poured into unmatched saucers,
like cats. Stepping out of the tea shop and into the night, I caught a trishaw
and drove down a dirt road through huge twisting banyan trees with roots like
petrified serpents; in the darkness people, crouched burning candles which threw
long distorted shadows across the road.
The next morning, I dressed and took the elevator downstairs to the lobby. As
the elevator door opened, I was met by a wedding party with flashbulbs
exploding. The groom wore white with a saffron colored Burmese turban with a
wing on the side, and the bride wore pink silk and a transparent silk
over-covering like a cocoon. Her hair was stacked up upon her head like a pastry
with a garland of yellow padauk flowers. Around her neck she wore a three tiered
necklace of pure gold set with pomagranet sized rubies and dazzling diamond
earrings. The procession had many bridesmaids in paper thin silk, and dozens of
children in satin pastels, but none were as beautiful as the bride.
In Burma there is a tradition of passing a dowry of jewels from mother to
daughter on the wedding day. So old are many of these diamonds, that I am sure
they originally came from the first source of diamonds, Golconda in India. Even
in the earliest days there had been trade between Burmese rubies and Indian
diamonds. These stones were large in size, sometimes slightly yellowish and
often imperfect. In Burma diamonds are worn backwards, that is with the flat
table side down against the earlobe, and the sharpened pavilliuon or backside
which came to a point called the culet, was worn outwards reflecting the light
in long angular prisms of color.
One woman standing near me had diamond earrings of eight to ten carats in each
ear. I noticed that both stones had large facets telling me that they had been
cut a very long time ago. I began to comment on her magnificent earrings. Every
time that she moved her head, dazzling colors shot out like searchlights. She
removed one icy diamond by unscrewing the back, and I took a closer look. She
inquired if I was in the business, and I nodded yes. I asked her where I might
find the bride's mother, who had invited me to this wedding. She grabbed my
hand, whisking me through the crowd, and within seconds I was standing in front
of a patrician woman with a high, receding forehead. Her hair must have been
incredibly long, as it was piled up in voluminous coils at the side of her head
and held into place with a tortoise shell comb. On her finger, which looked like
a curling pink shrimp, she wore a single pearl as large as a hazelnut.
The next morning was a Sunday and I got a call from a stranger, apparently
somebody in the diamond trade, whom I thought must be the brides mother, had
recommended to the stranger that I was a knowledgeable gemologist and a reliable
man who could help him in the purchase of some extraordinary diamonds which had
just arrived from Hong Kong. The deal had to be consummated today, he said, as
the diamond dealer had to be on a plane early the next morning. I could not be
told who had recommended me as it would be a loss of face for me to know their
identity. It was explained to me clearly that besides having a standing favor in
Rangoon, I would also be paid a good deal of money based on the value of the
stones. The gems in question were said to be four of the finest D- color
flawless diamonds, each several carats in weight. I told the stranger that if I
appraised the stones, I was going to be paid whether the deal went off or not.
He agreed and said that he was staying at the Strand Hotel.
I explained that since today was Sunday, everything was closed and suggested
that he wait until Monday for the laboratories to be opened so a complete report
on the quality of the gems could be made. Again, he told me that was impossible
and that the seller could not wait till Monday, and that I had only today to
show the stones. It seemed like a weird set-up to me; who would be in such a
rush when so much was at stake, but I knew that I by chance happened to have a
loose diamond a ruby and an emerald with me. I also had a 10X loupe, a small
flashlight, and a pair of tweezers, hardly enough equipment for a thorough
examination and gemological analysis to enable a confident purchase of such
magnitude. Even with proper equipment, an evaluation of diamonds in the top
qualities is hard enough. Internal characteristics particular to diamonds can be
seen and a clarity grade given. Judging diamonds against comparison stones of a
known color can accurately give a color grade. The cut of a stone and how far it
conforms or varies from the ideal can be clearly seen.
However, to evaluate the absolute top of the line diamonds, apparently colorless
and flawless, on a Sunday afternoon with the barest of equipment, having so much
money hanging in the balance, was crazy. One degree of color difference, one
degree of clarity difference could mean thousands of dollars, and I didn't have
comparison stones.
The stranger told me that my help would be greatly appreciated. I had nothing to
lose. The stones were not my stones. The money was not my money. Ambush me for
what? OK, I agreed to represent the buyer. I told him again that whether the
deal went off or not, I was going to get paid. This being settled, the stranger
gave me a room number at the Strand, and a time to meet. I hung up and showered,
ate some breakfast and was walking across the marble lobby of the Strand before
noon.
The room was one of the old suites which overlooked the port. I knocked and the
door swung open. Both of us were confronted by that vacuum of suspicion,
primitive and dangerous. The bottle-thick glasses magnified his owl-black eyes,
and made the diminutive gentleman look like an impeccably dressed watchmaker. My
fear evaporated.
Glancing around at the foot of the bed near a peach colored pillow, the money
was stacked up in neat piles. I contented myself by sitting in a sturdy chair at
the scrolled desk, and placed my chamois and tools at the side. In a few minutes
the seller showed up. He was a middle-aged Chinese, neatly dressed in a
well-tailored nondescript suit. The Chinese man came in, looked over at the
money and brought the diamonds out of a hidden inner pocket.
Wrapped in white diamond papers stating the weights, color and clarity, he
handed the papers to me and I sat down in the chair, picked up my loupe,
tweezers and flashlight. I removed my three stones, the diamond, the ruby and
the emerald from my pocket and put them on the table. His diamond papers opened,
revealing the inner waxy blue papers used to make diamonds appear even more
pure.
The weights looked good, three to five carats each, just the size to enable easy
liquidity. I then began to examine each stone under 10X power, and each appeared
to be flawless. Laying them down on the white paper, face down and side by side,
they all looked colorless as well. The cuts were very well- proportioned, the
largest diameter of the stone separating the crown or top part from the
pavillion or bottom part is called the girdle. This girdle can vary from very
thin, which may chip to very thick which does not contribute to the beauty, but
certainly does contribute to the price. The girdle is the place where the
maximum amount of weight could be saved by the cutter, and diamonds are sold by
weight. On nine out of ten diamonds, this girdle is of a granular or sugary
appearance. Occasionally a portion of the natural outer skin of the rough
diamond crystal is left behind, as a mark of the cutter, showing how well he
utilized the original rough. Sometimes this girdle is polished absolutely
smooth. The girdle on each of these stones was polished smooth, which I thought
strange but possible if the same cutter was employed for each of these stones.
Something else struck me as wrong, however. Polishing marks from the wheel were
evident on each of the stones. Why would a cutter, I wondered, working with the
very finest material like this, do such a poor job of polishing the girdle? Why
was the polishing finish on each of these stones the same? To find one stone
like this is possible, but four stones together of this top quality, all with
polished girdles showing wheel marks? No, it was impossible. Something was
wrong.
All of the stones were flawless, so there was nothing in the internal
characteristics to identify it as diamond. Color would also be of no assistance.
The only test available to me to conclusively determine what this material was
had to be specific gravity. Specific gravity essentially measures the
differences in density by hydrostatic weighing. The specific gravity of a
substance is constant within a certain narrow range. Diamond has a specific
gravity of 3.52. Emerald is lighter at 2.72 and ruby is the most dense at 4.00.
Water is not a heavy enough liquid for a test and I had no heavy liquids for
testing.
The buyer and the seller sat in the room slightly agitated awaiting an answer. I
asked the buyer, the bespectacled watchmaker, to call room service and order me
a tall glass of Cointreau without ice. He knitted his furry brow but picked up
the phone to order. Meanwhile, I sat back in the deep leather chair and smoked a
cigarette. The strained tension in the room was electric, but I blew smoke rings
and didn't want to look at either of them and reveal a clue.
In Strand fashion, the room boy in a starched white suit arrived with the tall
glass of Cointreau on a silver tray, and brought it to my table. Giving him a
few hundred Kyats, I waited until the door shut behind him and picked up my
diamond with the tweezers, the one I had brought with me, and suspended it
underneath the thick, clear liquor to break the surface tension, and dropped it
in a liquid free fall. I mentally noted the known diamond's rate of falling as I
brought it nearly to the surface and released again.
Then I took the Chinese seller's diamonds, and one by one, holding them under
the surface of the Cointreau, released them and watched the rate of sinking.
Invariably, his diamonds fell at a rate almost twice that of my diamond. I
compared my diamond's rate to the rate of sinking with my ruby. The ruby,
possessing a greater density than my diamond, sank noticeably quicker. I then
submerged his diamond with my ruby and released them into the Cointreau at the
same time. Holding my face closely to the glass of Cointreau, I saw his diamond
sink more quickly than my ruby. Something was definitely wrong. Estimating a
ratio of sinking between the two materials, I determined his diamond must be
substantially softer than natural diamond owing to the distinct polishing marks
on the girdle of every one of his stones. I crossed the room and had the Chinese
seller and the European buyer observe the test with their own eyes. Several
times I performed the hydrostatic test in the Cointreau as they looked on
incredulously.
I told them that in my opinion as a gemologist that these stones were not
diamond, in fact could not be diamond, but were Russian simulant, cubic
zirconium, which has a specific gravity of 5.70, nearly double that of real
diamond, and that is why they fell twice as fast while submerged in the
Cointreau.
The buyer hastily gathered up his money and stuffed it into a bag. The Chinese
seller became the red color of a thermometer bulb, spitting in Cantonese
staccato, and in English how thirty years in the business made him an expert and
how his people in Hong Kong were beyond reproach, but he knew that the test
could not lie. If he wasn't trying to swindle, then he had been swindled. Either
way, the deal was off.
I dried off and repapered his stones and handed them back to him. I turned to
the bushy-browed buyer, and he dug into his bag and handed me a fee. I ran my
thumb over the corners to make sure that all of the bills had Franklin's picture
engraved, stuffed them into my pocket, shook his hand, saw out the seller,
waited a few minutes while I drank the Cointreau, and quickly caught a taxi to
the Shwe Dagon Pagoda.
