Jungle Gems Newsletter - February 2003

Hello to everyone from the Catskill Mountains of New York.

The Arizona Gem Shows are finally over… whew. This is the first chance we have had to work on our monthly newsletter. During a show, there is just too much to do, too many people to see, and many more exciting stones to see than time permits. We had told you that this month's newsletter would be a recap of the famous Tucson Gem & Mineral Show. Well, those of you who have been there know what I mean when I say that a brief newsletter like ours could not begin to report on all the wonders of Tucson. Our webmasters in Tucson, Rob & Brad, say there is just no way our web-space can handle the many photos we had hoped to show you, and frankly we have no time to discuss Tucson in depth. So, we owe you one on the "Tucson Report" sorry if we have disappointed anyone.

This month's newsletter completes our first year with this experiment. The newsletter began as a lark, but your comments to our website have encouraged us to maintain it. Since we now are familiar with many of you who have signed up to receive this newsletter, we have noticed that many of you have very diverse interests. It is our desire to give you what you want to read, and we are encouraging feedback to help us define which direction we should take with this monthly emailing. Do our readers want more mining news? or reports on fine faceted gemstones available in our lovely city of Teofilo Otoni? Or mineral specimen updates? General interest stories of travel in Brasil? Current deals available in all of the above areas? Frankly, we are unsure which way to focus in the coming months.

Part of our new perspective and concerns revolves around negotiations that we completed in Tucson to enter into joint mining projects which our new associates want kept private. For their own reasons, they do not want our ventures publicized or reported on here in the newsletter. This limits our topics and makes it all the more imperative that we decide what our readers would prefer us to report on. So if any of you readers would care to give us your input, we would greatly appreciate it in trying to give all of our readers an interesting monthly update.

Our webmasters, Brad & Rob (who are based in Tucson AZ), are beginning the addition of almost 400 new items to the website pages, and a general updating of existing items. We will have many new categories, including new faceted stones of Amazon Opal, specialty collector’s quartz, wire-wrapped Amazon Amber, Diamontina Lasers with phantoms, the last of the Smokey Laser production, a new faceted Gemstone area, as well as other changes. We will have many old stock items at reduced prices, and special lots for dealers who can handle volume orders. Please try to check back with us in the coming weeks for new and better deals at jungle-gems.com.

We will be back in Brasil at some point during March, and will continue our newsletter, with our new format based on input we have received by you, our readers.

We are looking forward to a prosperous year operating from the colored gemstone capital of the world: Teofilo Otoni, Minas Gerais Brasil.

~ Jungle-Gems.com newsletter is prepared by Kirk "Tomas" Bond and Jeffrey Gale