Fortunately Intergem doesn't seem to be travelling to Europe any time soon. I've been to a couple of jewellery fairs and walked out a lot poorer than I walked in. But much happier too.
I know that experience
intimately.
First show I went to, I set a $500 budget. Spent $1000.
The next show I set a $1000 budget. Spent $1800.
Yada yada yada…
I’m much better at keeping to my budget these days, but it took going to a show a decade or so ago and spending WAAAAAY too much to knock some sense back into me. Essentially, I had a commitment out of town, and could only attend the first day of the (3 day) show, and was having problems deciding what to buy. So I
didn’t decide- I bought
everything I liked.
Well,
almost everything. On my way out of the show, I passed on one newly discovered stone that was exceedingly rare. The cutter, Bill Vance, had 20+ carats of faceted material for sale, approximately 75% of the world’s supply. He offered to sell me one of the largest for $3000. I could have bought it, but the reality of what I had already spent was starting to sink in. I passed on it.
He sold it about 6 months later for $20k.
If I had bought it, selling it it would have put me back in the black with plenty of room to spare. Thing is, I’m not sure I would/could have sold it then.
To this day, I’ve never sold a piece of my jewelry and only 2 stones I’ve purchased. What little has left my Draconic hoard were gifts to friends and family.
I‘ve only a couple weeks ago cherry-picked some of my best stuff to sell in order to raise funds. I photographed them all (badly) and catalogued them for appraisal & sale with the purpose of replacing the decrepit wooden fence & motorized gate of my parents’ house with a metal one so they don’t have to take out a loan to do the work.m Depending on the job bids and what I can get for my stones, we might even add a solar power & storage setup.
But I can already feel myself second-guessing
my own plan because of how cool some are.