Made In China?

[dddale]

i have a question, being new to jewelry making. If a gemstone comes from Utah or arizona or wherever, why does it say "made in china"? when you order them?

[WriteBrainedWoman]

That does seem like a contradiction, but there's a good explanation. The "made in" label refers to the country where the greatest value is added. So that particular gemstone was mined in the U.S.A. and then sent to a bead cutter in China. In this case (as with many gemstones), the cutting process was worth more than the raw gemstone material.

To learn more about particular gemstones, check out our  
Gemstone Beads Index

[Russ Nobbs]

Where it avoids confusion (and if there is enough room on the label) we sometimes add more info about the source of the stone.

The natual Sleeping Beauty Turquoise heishi is a good example. Our stock is "Made in Vietnam" because that is where the rough stone is cut, drilled and rolled into heishi beads. Most of the vlaue is added in Vietnam.  But some customers were annoyed when they thought we were trying to pass off  Asian merchandise as American Sleeping Beauty turquoise.

I think we have a second label now that says made in Vietnam from natural Sleeping Beauty from Globe Arizona.... or words to that effect.

Why Vietnam?  A number of Vietnamese refugees settled in Albuquerque, NM and worked in the turquoise and silver jewelry business. Some started their own shops. One worked making heishi to supply the Santo Domingo Pueblo and other sellers. He took the process back to Vietnam and taught a group there to reduce his labor costs. He buys American turquoise, ships it to Vietnam, makes the beads and ships it back to the US for sale. It's another immigrant success story that illustrates how "global" the bead industry really is.

We are hesitant to make the double label in all cases as we are not always sure  which particular part of the world the rough material came from. It's part of our attempt to be as accurate as we can be.

All vendors are supposed to label all imported products with the country of origin but, in reality, many don't bother. The end user  is supposed to be able to quickly tell where the product came from, or at least where the most value was added.

Some clothing labels go into great detail: cotton material from China, printed in Venezuala, sewn in Puerto Rico, etc, etc. That's probably the ideal solution.