Jewelry Development

Jewelry manufacturing services are conducted as partnership between American Gemstone Authority, LLC (AGA) and Manja Thai Co., LTD. Sales, support, and customer interface is conducted by AGA

American Gemstone Authority, LLC is incorporated in Nevada, with sales based out of Hanover, New Hampshire and Bangkok, Thailand.

Composition and History

Quadrature is a partnership of four primary constituents, representing three different companies, four countries, and the main specialties in the gem and jewelry industry. It is the elimination of intermediaries, access to a small group of qualified people, and all of this in the gemstone trading capital of the world, where labor is talented and inexpensive. It is this formula that enables us to carry out our customers' creations with high quality standards at prices completely incomparable to those of western production facilities.

Our Team:

THE MASTER CUTTER:
Requested that name be withheld from the web page to avoid solicitations)
(Rough Buyer, Workshop Chief and Trainer, Inventor and developer of Machines for Lapidary

Our master cutter has over 20 years of experience in gemstone cutting and rough buying, the majority of which were spent cutting on location for gemstone mines in a very important producing country for semi-precious and precious stones. As a country rich in many different types of minerals, its mines are quite varied producing many different types of gemstones all of which must be faceted differently. Seeing this, developed optimized machines allowing him to apply appropriate cutting techniques to each particular variety. These machines, which can be adapted to hard or soft stones, are sold with the tables of ideal angles (more than 100 styles of faceting) and the particular procedures adapted to certain difficult stones. These machines help ensure a minimum loss of rough material, even when cutting very difficult rough like Kunzite.

Running a gemstones cutting workshop does not leave enough time to do much else, thus handling "Semi-precious stones" can require sub-contracting a part of the work, especially with relatively low value varieties like quartz. With these types of stones, skilled cutters will usually stop at the "preform" stage where their skills are best utilized. It is during this cutting stage that the cutters must choose the position of the table which will usually affect the final color of the finished stone. It is at this stage that one can gain or lose 20% - 30% of their investment on their rough. After this stage, the preforms are then sent to a different workshop for polishing (a job requiring far less skill).

Certain varieties of gemstones like Kunzite “Pink Spodumen with perfect cleavage” require especially trained skills in the slicing process as well as in the faceting stage, which involves intermediate heating (hardening) to avoid breaking the pointed edges of the stone. This is why most of the kunzite on the market are oval or pear but rarely square shaped.

Lastly, it is important to constantly seek new sources of rough, to develop relationships with the mining companies in producing countries and often to join with others to form a purchasing consortium in order to buy the largest possible quantity at the largest possible discount.

It is through the extraordinary aid of this man that we are able offer extremely precise cutting services, as well as extremely competitively priced rough and faceted gemstones.

THE GEMOLOGIST: MARKETING and MANAGEMENT :
(Business Minded American)
Co-Managing Director, AGA LLC

Setting up a company requires a permanent investment of time and money that needs to be made wisely. For that reason, there is nothing worth a young American Gemologist who had the courage to jump into such an adventure as coming to Thailand, combining studies in Gemology and International Business Administration, with the development of an E-commerce web site and the participation in jewelry auctions (London and New York) as sole revenue sources. I name my very close friend and partner, with whom I chose to share this adventure, the co-founder of our young company: Mr. Noah Severs, 24 years, untiring hard worker.

THE JEWELLER (Jewelry Development Manager):
Jeweler & Gemologist & Independent Collaborator

It is necessary to realize that gemstones exist to be mounted on jewelry; thus for better understanding of customers and their needs any team in the gemstone business should have a specialist in Jewelry.

As such, I am very happy to collaborate with my fellow French friend, Fabien Andret, 34 years. Fabien shares my principle of systematic work organization as well as a sharp sense of detail. It was because of him that we are able to enter into the development of Jewelry with serenity and offer our customers a total jewelry manufacturing solution allowing us to control the entire chain of production from rough stones to finished Jewelry.

EXPERT GEMOLOGIST, SOURCING & PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
(Advanced Laboratory Gemology, Networking, Webmaster & Marketing Tools, Group Founder)
Co-Managing Director AGA LLC, Managing Director Manja Thai Co., Ltd

Individually, each of us in his own respective fields are subjected to constraints that need to be well understood by his collaborators. For instance a cutter is often annoyed by the requirements of the designs when he tries to get the best out of a given stone, and conversely the designer does not always consider things from the perspective of the gemstone cutter. In the end, this often creates headaches for the jewelers who must get designs to work.

It is precisely where our structure can save our customers a lot of time and travel between cutters jewelry factories. I am here to ensure that the information flows well between our services and to ensure a positive external coordination with customers and factories.

Besides these responsibilities, I am working on developing new products (like the business of Rough Gemstones and machine development) as well as finding new perspectives for our business. Together with my partner Noah, I am also doing a lot of networking for large scale business programs, whose capacities in analyzing market behavior is a great help in the evaluating potential success for new activities.

The story behind Quadrature

After gathering data on the Asian market, enriched by multiple experiences over 3 years I spent working for others, I decided to mobilize the people who had gained my confidence and my respect.

First of all Noah Severs with whom I registered the company American Gemstone Authority, LLC and planted the first stakes during the year 2006. The project began as a simple commercial account in the USA to help us with trading on the Internet and to conduct our respective businesses.

Some time later, idea came to us to prepare a pricing guide together with knowledge bases in gemology allowing people coming in Thailand to buy stones, to have some background knowledge of what to expect. It was also a way that we could do our part to help combat some of the gem scams we frequently read about which damages our industry. At this point, we took part in the development of a local gemology institute, GHI (Gemological Hallmark International Ltd., http://www.ghi.co.th/). We soon felt the need to develop more commercial activities.

It took some acceleration with my resignation from SUC Trading Bangkok, and my binding with a very good cutter. At that time, Noah was conducting an E-commerce web site (www.gemwares.com), and experimenting in the manufacture of fashion jewelry. During our free time, we would gather at GHI, in the Warner Tower on Mahesak Road in Bangkok.

At this time, Fabien (always very solo) worked obstinately as an Independent Local Agent for the development of jewelry (mainly for French companies wishing to manufacture their jewelry in Thailand). After 2 years of experience in this filed, he knew perfectly well all the factories around Bangkok, as well as their weaknesses and strong points.

One day a well respected gemstone cutter asked me to help him in drawing and producing machines of his invention for his cutting workshop, as well as to sell abroad (Slicing, Preforming, Calibrating, Index Precision cutting, etc...). Having little in the way of a formal business education, he asked me to help him with this project as well as with negotiations with companies hiring him in the capacity of cutter/trainer.

As we worked together on this effort, it soon became apparent that it would take time to realize any income from the machines, as it was a fairly large project using parts from many different companies. Mentioning to him that I needed to develop a a source of income if I was going to devote a lot of time to this project, he proposed to collaborate with me on distributing some of his stones. All of a sudden, I found myself disposing of an enormous stock of rough stones from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, South-America and Africa. In addition, he gave me the knowledge of rough evaluation, loss calculation and many other important aspect of this business.

Helping the cutter with his business of training and exporting machines opened up contacts with Mines in some of the most inaccessible parts of the world like Pakistan and Afghanistan. From that point I was able to supply custom cut stones at very low prices. My friend Fabien and I started to collaborate quite naturally: I started to acquire gemstones for his jewelry lines and he gave me quotations for certain customers who bought stones from me who were also developing jewelry. Later, Noah started to be solicited by his customers for jewelry projects that were a little bit out of his knowledge range. This was when I proposed that we all form a collaboration to work as a specialized group of associates. We decided to use our company "American Gemstone Authority LLC" to distribute our products, while using my company "Manja Thai Co, Ltd" as a local base for our operations in Thailand. Thus, our jewelry project was born.

Yannick Mandaba (Feb. 1st 2007)