There was a time that I traveled extensively from store to store, city to city and state to state appraising jewelry. So one particular occasion I was in a store in Kahului, Maui. I had teamed up with a Gem merchant and his salesperson, a guy named Sobel, on this venture. Sobel himself didn’t know a lot about gems but he was learning. I knew I had much more knowledge than he, so I started messing with him. He would bring me one of his stones and ask me what it was. So I would look at it, smell it and then bounce it off the glass counter and say, that’s an amethyst. He would later bring me another and I would do the same and say, it’s a ruby. Finally he asked me what I could tell by smelling it. I told him there is nothing I can look at or smell and tell what it is or where it has been.
I think he started to figure I was messing with him because later in the day he brought over a stone and showed me, he said don’t go bouncing it because it belongs to that guy over there with the Panama hat. Good thing because it turned out it was a very expensive alexandrite.
But more exciting than that was the gentleman that came in for me to look at some stones for him. I started looking and talking with him when he told me his name Max Fisher, yes thee Max Fisher, the guy that President Nixon would call to get advise on Economic matters.
