Service III

Rare Luxury Acquisition

For the collector who has stopped shopping.

Every counter sells you what it already owns. I start from what you asked for.

A boutique is an inventory business. Somebody bought those stones months ago, on their judgement and their budget, and the job of the room is to move them. Whatever you walk out with is a choice made from another person's decisions.

I work the other way round. The brief comes first. Colour, cut, carat, origin, the piece it is going to become and the number it has to stay under. Then I go and find it, wherever it is and however long that takes.

Diamonds
Commissions
Auctions

The reframe

Sourcing is not shopping.

The difference is not service or surroundings. It is the order the decisions are made in, and who is carrying the stock.

Write the brief first, then wait for the right stone. It appears on its own schedule rather than on a shopping trip's, and waiting is the service.
At a counterChoose from what is in the case this season.: Buy nearer the source. At this level the margin avoided is not a discount, it is a different order of number.
At a counterPay the retail margin, and the rent on the room you are standing in.: Independent certification verified before any money moves, and provenance documented from origin rather than from the last owner.
At a counterTrust the certificate that came in the box.: Buy where the stone is. Antwerp, Dubai, Johannesburg, Jaipur, or an estate sale that never advertised.
At a counterBuy where the family has always bought.: Own a documented thing. Beauty is why you want it. Documentation is what makes it insurable, transferable and worth what you paid.
At a counterOwn a beautiful thing.: Tell me what it is for. A stone bought for a daughter's wedding and a stone bought to hold value are not the same stone, and no showroom will say so.
At a counterAsk the shop what would suit you.

The work

Brief to vault.

01
The brief
Colour, cut, carat, clarity, origin, the setting it is destined for, the ceiling it has to stay under and the date it has to exist by. Written down, because a vague brief buys a vague stone.
02
The search
International dealers, cutters, auction houses and private estates. Most of what I look at never reaches a shop window, and most of what I look at is refused.
03
Verification
Independent laboratory certification, provenance and valuation, obtained before money moves rather than after. A stone without a paper trail is a decoration.
04
Acquisition
Negotiation, terms, currency and transfer. I hold no stock, so nothing in the arrangement pushes a particular stone toward you.
05
Commission
The stone made into the piece, with a maker chosen for that stone rather than a house chosen for its name. From sketch through wax to setting.
06
Custody
Transport, vaulting, insurance and the documentation that makes cover possible at all. The part everybody forgets until the year they need it.

How it works

I hold no stock.

Which means there is nothing I need you to buy, and no stone whose sale suits me more than another's.

The fee: Quoted against the brief, never off a list. What I charge depends on what you are asking me to find, how rare it is and how far I have to go for it, so the number arrives after the brief and not before it.
The engagement: Agreed against the brief before the search begins, so the cost of the work is known at the point you commission it rather than at the point you commit to a stone.
The refusal: If the brief cannot be met at the number, I say so and the search stops. A stone bought to close an engagement is the one thing this service exists to avoid.
What you see: Every certificate, every valuation and every quoted price as it arrives, alongside what was rejected and why.

Open a brief

The services