Zambia: buying tourmaline

I decide to renew my contacts in Zambia and invest in our own rough there. Zambia is mineral rich and setting up a mining concern in Zambia is pretty straightforward.

I decided to go and see a closed tourmaline mine to look at possibilities to open the mine myself. This meant a quick trip to an area that I have not visited before.

We decided to buy some tourmaline that we could lay our hands on to test the market before we open our own mine. There are 3 areas that are well known for tourmaline. We decided to go to the Eastern Province in Zambia.

We started off in Lusaka and visited some crowded markets and landed up on the third story of a ramshackled building. This office was manned by Senegalese. The prices started at $2 per gram and after heavy negotiations we manged to get a better price. The parcel contained stones in many colours. See the photo below

This parcel is going to make stunning colourful beads. We then set off to Nyimba in the east of Zambia. The rental car was only good for the tar roads and not for offroad driving to the mine. Our Zambian partner told us it is only 200 km that turned into 320 km. We stopped on the way to look at the fish stands at the Luangwa river. 

This was real Africa.

One of the roads we travelled

The juke boxes were at full blast and the happy half drunken souls were dancing in the tar road. The basket sellers were ever hopeful that they were going to make a sale. We bought a few bags of dried smelly fish for the miners. The smell was something.

About 10 km further we hit a large pothole but survived. This was the beginning of 50 km's of potholes. Some fairly large. Ouch! We stopped on the way to look at an abondoned mine that has produced gem quality tourmaline before. We want to open up the mine again. Aparently the bulk of the material from here was all gem quality. Even some Paribas blues. Wow! We will keep you updated when we open the mine. Maybe we can get a contact for a National Geographic video when we start opening up the mine. It sure is pretty in that area. The only hassle are Elephants, lions and Hyena. And Malaria.

We stopped to look at another deposit of tourmalated quartz. These are also worth mining. Our final destination was Nyimba. Let me warn you about potential scams. We connected with some locals and asked them to arrange some showings the next morning. We parted with around R360 for travelling expenses etc.

Breakfast was a typical Zambian meal. The fish was Tilapia. Delicious!

The next morning our new 'friends' told us that there were some Senegalese buyers the day before and that he failed to get any material for us to buy because of these buyers. Imagine the disapointment after having traveled so far. We just had one mediocre parcel to look at that turned out to be almost just black tourmaline.

We turned our vehicle and started heading back to Lusaka in the late afternoon. Enroute we decided to confirm the 'friends' story at a roadside stand. It turned out to be all lies. The miners were eagerly awaiting us. We ended up buying 31 kg of gem quality tourmaline. It was hectic. Negotiating and pleading*&^%$# At one stage we came to a deadlock and after climbing in the car and turning our vehicle towards Lusaka we broke the deadlock when they saw that the money is leaving. It was such fun.

The goods are on the way to China now and will be made into beads soon. It was quite a capital outlay with some material costing almost $1 per gram.

It was dark when we left. This turned out to be a mistake. The potholes were waiting for us. I forgot about the monster pothole and when I hit it I knew we were in trouble. We have just spend all our Zambian money and here we were with 2 flat tyres on the side of a malaria infested road. Well we limped into Lusaka the next morning totally beat but satisfied. I had some tyres to fix. A visit to the Ministry of Mines was neccesary to clear the gems. The process is not easy but I know my way around the place and we managed just in time to get the plane back to South Africa.

Future plans is to open our own Rose quartz, Sodalite and amazonite mines.

Have fun and leave us a note when you have read this.

Gerdus



Nickel or nickel free findings

Silver Hills Gems will be changing to nickel free and lead free findings during 2011.

What does this process involve? All findings are made from either copper or zink alloys. We need to change the way that the findings are plated. Most metal articles are plated after manufacturing. Zinc plating is both durable and easy. You just pop the article in the plating solution and before your eyes the item turn to a bright silver colour. It is like magic.

Plating with zinc free solutions is a bit more complicated. Zinc will plate any metal but not all metals can be plated by the same zinc free plating. The process demand more time and is more expensive. Some plating needs 3-4 different coatings to get the same shiny result.

The discomfort is that nothing can be bought off the shelve. All the findings have to be ordered and I will have to buy larger minimum quantities to get them to make and plate them in nickel free. I now need you to write to me on the basic items you need that we will need to stock.

I plan to start off with headpins, jumprings, clasps, chain, earhooks, wire guardians and such items.

We can't change an item that is already plated by nickel to a nickel free item. So we have to sell out our current range.

Why would we like to change to nickel free? It is already a requirement in all of Europe and the UK. If they require it we want to find out why and follow suite.

Is nickel dangerous? Not really. It gives an alergic reaction to some people. Small amounts of metal can build up in your body over time but studies are not conclusive enough to give a total ban on nickel. Remember that we are behind on some things and it usually takes around 3 years and then our goverment follow suite.

See what one of my customers wrote this week.

Wow, Nickel free findings would be GREAT?!!! I have been making beaded jewellery for 7 years, I only use nickel findings as I have searced high and low for Nickel Free findings and so far havent been able to find a supplier locally. I would definately buy all my nickel free from you.  I have had offers to sell my jewellery abroad but due to my findings not being nickel free I  was turned down.  Nickel free is much better quality too (found some clasps only from a supplier) and looks much better too.  I commonly use toggle clasps, split rings, wire guardians, eye pins, head pins etc.

Let me add some links here to usefull articles to read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroless_nickel_plating

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0xFlIQ9MhQ Nickel plating video

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plating A general article on plating.

Hear what Ted Mooney had to say on this subject.
I have seen in print that 40 percent of adult women under 30 are sensitive to nickel, and that 30 percent of women 30 to 40 years old are sensitive, etc.
Once you have the allergy you have it for life, so it is imperative that this not be read as an indication that sensitivity goes down with age, but rather that exposure has gone up among younger women (probably primarily due to piercings).
Whether the survey numbers are exactly accurate, though, isn't the salient point. The point is that the numbers are skyrocketing, the allergy is acquired, and is strongly proportional to exposure. It is not impossible that virtually all of us would acquire the allergy if we wore nickel plated piercings for years. It is urgent that we do everything we reasonably can to get nickel out of jewelry as rapidly as possible.

http://www.tanury.com/tech5.htm Another interesting article on the challenges facing anyone going nickel free.

What materials can be used to plate nickel free jewwellery. Copper, tin alloy or rhodium or 925 silver. Each plating method has it's own challenges.

It is also important to buy from a reputable source because some people might say that their items are nickel free just to corner the market. We use a nickel testing kit to make sure that all the items are truly nickel free. Also make sure that the coatings are plated to the right thickness. You do not want the plating to come off after cleaning it the just a few times. We use a plating company that has years of experience when it comes to plating in nickel free plating.

Buy from Silver Hills Gems with confidence.