Met David at breakfast in the hotel (la Quinta, IIRC, the smallest rooms I ever saw since 13-VI-1990.). One could walk around the bed, with some skill. The bathroom was a matter of the masons' skill. When you sit you always have something to lean on, everything is nearby.
We walked to UniJewel, and agreed on the plan of atttack.
At least I saw where I was going. It's across one corner of the diamond district on Manhattan, 5th avenue, no less. The building is at least twoney stories tall, they're on fifteenth and have a largish terrace, because that's where the building gets narrower, sixteenth floor and above have even less space. Once in the lobby, David leaned his card-on-a-leash to the barrier machine, pretty much what they have in the subways, the three-prong type, and for me he began negotiating with the slab of a Hindu guy, security, that I'm new here and should soon be employed. I think I had to give my diver's [license] to him to scan it, and then he let us in.
After leaving the elevator he again leaned the card on the doorframe, so we got in and found ourselves in a glass cabin, something two by a meter, and waited there for the secretary to notice us and allow us in. All neat and posh, tables real wood, and rather tight. This is Manhattan, square [meter] costs a lung and a kidney. He showed me the vault, which is about one and a half phone booth in volume, looks like foot thick steel or it's just giving the impression, in the office next to the reception [desk]. The next office has an electric lock with numeric keypad, type the code to enter. Says that's where they show the stones to customers. Not that they actually expect anyone with sticky fingers to come in like that, or if one does nick a pebble or two that they'll notice and keep the guy, it's rather designed to impress everyone else.
On every doorframe there's a glass tube, in brass fitting screwed into the wood, at an angle. In the tube, a piece of paper with ragged edges. He noticed my inquisitive look, said „that's scrolls from the Torakh“ (sp?). Guess it means something to them, whether the space being sanctified or protected or something. Just to let me know where I was.
I already learned more about diamonds than I ever wanted to know. And all my doubts were confirmed - the stones have only psychological value, this is the scam of the century. But it trudges along, leaning on hundred years of entrenched advartising. He mentioned some article where the whole con was debunked convincingly and clearly and the nature of the trick was explained. I found it later and yes, it's exactly so. But the article was published in the eighties and it changed nothing - what can a handful of those in the know do against a billion bucks advertising campaign?
And they have one horrible app, written in Access :slapforehead: which mostly works, except it doesn't quite follow their production process and never actually has the inventory right. About which they don't really care, few thousand stones more or less. And when the price per carat falls, they just pull them from the shelves and wait it out. Allegedly they have more money than there is in the budget (whole, or just for education, science or..?).
Along the way I asked how come, in elementary I learned that the world diamond centre was in Amsterdam, why is it now in Antwerp? „Ah, the silly Dutches, they tried to tax us“.
Jüzek wasn't there, something came up so he had to stay in Belgium, but we talked with his son-in-law, who was the manager. Though, it's clear that he just pretends to be some authority, for which nobody gives a fuck, they just play along to indulge him. Scheduled another trip for 11th, this time they're paying the airfare, at the fuckers' rate of 665$.
7-XII-2011 - 19-II-2026