How to participate in an auction of Colombian emeralds?
Before addressing the issue of emerald auctions, you must know that to participate in these events one of the golden rules to enter is to have a minimum budget to invest that does not lower the 100 million pesos.
This can count as an investment in partnership with another buyer or an individual purchase. Whatever the case may be, the value with which the auction is entered must cover at least half the total value of a high-quality Colombian emerald.
If you comply with this first golden rule, you're ready to participate in an emerald auction, so keep reading to find some additional recommendations to win in these auctions.
Who can participate
- Emeralds: during these auctions it is common to look at the emerald profile as one of the main emerald buyers. With the name of an emerald profile, we mean high-level buyers, men and women who participate in these bids with more than a billion pesos, and who in addition buy more than one gem at the event.
- Commissioners in charge: as we mentioned in previous entries, the role of the commissioners in addition to reselling the merchandise of the emeralds or even themselves, have a place in the emerald auctions.
During these auctions, commissioners usually offer their own gems for sale and even come to offer, under mutual agreement, the stones given by other emeralds.
- A representative of a company: in an emerald auction you can buy individually or in companies, in the latter, the parts of society give a certain percentage of the money to buy a gem.
In this case, often not all investors of the emerald can attend the auctions, despite this, a legal representative who is in charge of negotiating the prices and finding the percentage of contribution required by each partner can attend the auctions.
Where the auctions are held
Usually, emerald auctions are set for a weekend a month where buyers from various parts of the country meet. The news comes through the voice and they also usually reach through social networks through closed groups to which only "serious" buyers belong.
Those also known as "sales," are held in the emerald mines directly, as it is the meeting point of those looking for stones of high commercial quality.
In the northwestern area of the department of Boyacá, it is where the largest emerald deposits are concentrated, there are the mines of Muzo, Borbur, Coscuez, Chivor, Peñas Blancas, La Pita and Quípama. Gachetá and Gachalá, located in the northeast of Cundinamarca, complete the most important area of emerald exploitation in the country.
General recommendations
- Auctions can be many in a day, in fact they are done simultaneously, for hours different buyers meet with those looking to toy a emerald.
- The auctions start in the morning around 6:00 a.m. and can be finished late at night
- Because auctions are held in mines, they are always carried out in the open ski way, so specific areas must be searched to review stones carefully and avoid poor weather and terrain conditions.
- It is not always necessary to carry the money in branch for the purchase of the gem, it can be guided with the seller the payment in instalments or the transfer to an account.
- Always cautiously take the data of the person who sold you and if you can sign a promise to buy - sell in case you don't make the immediate payment don't transport the gem elsewhere.
Paula A. Bonilla
Social communicator and journalist from Sergio Arboleda University in Colombia. She is also a jeweler and is passionate about constantly learning about precious gems and national high jewelry.
Currently, she is working for one of Bogotá's most important jewelry stores, Emerald by Love. This jewelry store has over 40 years of experience and has 2 physical branches in the capital city of Colombia, located in the city center.
