And then also—one of the most important collectible gems in the world that is predominantly a Sri Lankan phenomenon, it goes back hundreds of years to the Maharajas as well—is the Padparadscha Sapphire. If you can get Padparadscha Sapphire with that perfect lotus color, of the integration of pink-orange like the lotus flower, that particular material soars at auction, and collectors pay huge premiums. Up to $50,000 a carat, no sweat. And Kat Florence has so many notable Padparadschas that I've collected through the years, like 10.00 carat unheated Ceylons. I've got a couple that have come from other locales as well, even as rare as Mogok.

I am a big fan and collector of the Padparadscha Sapphire because I know they're only one in a million stones, they're extremely rare. They're coveted. Mother Nature has to have the perfect storm of events to basically put together the perfect trace elements to give you that lotus flower color. And it can come in multiple types. You have the Sunset or the Sunrise: the Sunrise being more of the pinkish-orange variety, and then the Sunset being more of the orangey-pink variety, and then everything in between. But they must have a predominant pink-orange effect integrated within the crystal structure. And if you can get these stones unheated, it's super rare. They are very uncommon.

So when I go to Sri Lanka, I export about hundreds and hundreds of kilos of rough material, because that's my core business. And I sell that to cutting factories all over the world. And what I try to do, when I'm going through these hundreds and hundreds of kilos, I have sorters who grade the rough. And whenever they see a Padparadscha, they pull it aside. Or they see a hot pink, they pull it aside, or they see a violet, they pull it aside.

These stones are extremely rare. They actually represent a miniscule amount of what Mother Nature produces—if you can get nice purples, and nice, hot, deep, vivid pinks, and you can get that rare integration of the pink-orange Padparadschas—making them one of the most collectible Sapphires in the world. Now, Kat Florence only deals with unheated varieties, and these varieties are very uncommon. They come predominantly out of my collection of going back and forth to Sri Lanka for over 30 years. They're extremely rare. They're coveted. And if you like sparkle, Sri Lankan Sapphire gives you sparkle.

Now I'll go to the Mogok Stone Tract, because the Mogok Stone Tract not only—first of all, its Ruby demands the highest price per carat of any color gemstone in the world, second to Blue and Pink Diamond. There is no other colored gemstone that's even close. Emerald is about a quarter of $1,000,000 a carat; Kashmir Sapphires, a quarter of $1,000,000 a carat. Ruby demands over $1,100,000 a carat, coming out of the Mogok gemological mines of the Mogok Stone Tract.

And that particular area—now, I've been going to this area for a long time, right? I've lived in Thailand for the last 30-odd years. So when I was very young, like 15, I was ignorant. I was a little bit dumb. I didn't really care. You could not enter into Mogok, or you could not go into Burma, at that period. It was a closed country. And I used to sneak across the border.

Now, it was basically, if they caught me, I don't think I would be here making this podcast right now, because it was not… you were not treated well if you snuck across the border. But I used to do it either way. And I used to travel into the Shan State, through the Shan State, follow the Mogok Stone Tract, and stay with the villagers.

I speak Thai fluently. I also speak other dialects—Northeastern, Eastern, from the area of Southeast Asia. And I grew up in Southeast Asia hunting these rare stones. So I was going to Pailin, Cambodia, at the time; I was up in Vietnam when the new discoveries were happening up there, up in Luc Yen; so I'd been all over there, and I used to go across to Burma. It’s one of my favorite locales to go to because of the legendary Pigeon Blood Red Ruby, but it also produces what's known as the Mogok Blue Sapphire.

The Mogok Blue Sapphire is expensive. It's very, very unique. Just like all gems from the Mogok Stone Tract, that is the finest grades of what Sapphire can become. So you do get a lot of royal blues. You get a lot of open, vibrant colors and a lot of sparkle.

It's very difficult to get clean Burma; they usually tend to have a silky patch to them if they're natural unheated. That's why most people heat the stones: to reduce the silk aspect. Because what happens when you heat Sapphire is, the needles—the Rutile needles within the crystal structure—is what that silk is, and you're not actually removing it; you're just sort of melting it. What happens is: the needles become less visible to the naked eye, allowing more crystal to go through the crystal structure. And that's why a lot of people like to heat the stones. It's sort of like an aging process, making that steak a little bit more well-done. And so it brings out the perfect brilliance.

What I collect, and I've always collected, is the stones that are perfect from the hand of Mother Nature. To have a vibrant, intense, royal blue Mogok Sapphire that has crystallization is so rare. It's unheard of. A little bit of inclusions is actually accepted in the Burmese stones. Like, for example, the $1,000,000 a carat Sunrise Ruby that was sold at auction. That $1,000,000 carat Sunrise Ruby also was not perfectly clean. So it's the expectation coming out of either Kashmir and Mogok stones, is never to be perfectly clean anyway. They're looking for nice color, nice size, good crystallization, and great vibrance—and that, the stones coming out of the Mogok Stone Tract will give you.

And we've also found—very rarely, and I collect only rare—so I found some Padparadscha colors coming out of Mogok as well. You get the occasional nice yellow. Predominantly the yellows coming out of Sri Lanka reign supreme. The deep, vivid yellows—you get some nice natural color yellows. I would say one in 100,000 yellows in the marketplace is actually unheated. So you would say 99,999 had been heated.

The Thai market controls the yellow market, because they buy this lighter color yellow coming from Sri Lanka or Africa. They heat it to improve the color and reduce the Rutile needles in the crystal structure, bringing out that electric pop that comes out of Yellow Sapphire. But if you can get a deep, nice color, or a vivid color, like a fancy yellow or a canary yellow color or golden, in natural—that is extremely rare, and very, very difficult to find. Predominantly out of Sri Lanka. You do not find this color coming out of the Mogok Stone Tract. You get more of a medium to lighter yellow. And you do get some clarity there, but you see more of lighter colors coming out of the Mogok Stone Tract.

In Mogok Stone Tract, predominantly you see the Pigeon Blood Red Ruby. You get a lot of Spinels, you get some Peridots that are unbelievable coming out of there; but their stones are world-respected. I mean, the Mogok Stone Tract: they’re top, top of the line.

I'm going to introduce you to the imposter mine. The impostor mine is the Didy deposit in Madagascar. Why we call it the impostor mine is because it's produced some of the most important Sapphires, Rubies, and fancy-colored Sapphires ever. It is really a remarkable deposit.

So right there in a national forest, what happened is two illegal loggers pulled down a tree, and in its roots, there were these two stones: a red one and a blue one. He took these stones down to the capital, Tana. He met some Sri Lankan guy who gave him $20,000 in cash for these two stones. Can you imagine that? A normal guy in Madagascar getting handed $20,000 in cash for these two stones? I mean, that created a riot. What happened is: he went with all this cash back, and within a week we had 10,000 people migrating into the national forests.

Now, you're not allowed to mine in the National Reserve in Madagascar. You know what I mean? That's where the animals are. You're not supposed to mine in this particular area. Anyway, people saw the riches. It was like the gold rush in California. Everybody started moving. It was like a whole town moving, and a lot of it came from the Ilakaka area, because that was the big strike. About five to 10 years prior to Didy was the Ilakaka, in a different part of Madagascar. And a lot of people were just running towards this Didy deposit, because they knew it would be short-lived, and the return was unbelievable.