Although Michael Valitutti is a graduate gemologist working at Nathan Hennick & Co. Ltd., that title fails to describe exactly how involved he is with every step of the jewellery business. From visiting mines, to buying parcels of exotic gems at trade shows, to developing new processes to manipulate gemstones and metal, to selling finished pieces on a company website (GemsEnVogue.com) and on television shopping channels around the world, he takes a hands-on approach to the jewellery business.
CIM Magazine dropped by his office in Toronto to talk about the jewellery industry, the effects of COVID-19 on gemstone mining and the curious shopping habits of millennial Australians.
CIM: Would you tell us a bit about the company?
Valitutti: This company has been around since 1946. It’s a family-owned company. We manufacture jewellery here. This is the original building, but it will be condos in a couple of years. We’ll be moving and getting a place locally, but because the zoning got changed, some of the manufacturing [we do], like the heavy casting where there is burnout, we have to transfer that overseas.
We’ll bring in the pieces semi-finished and finish them up. We’ll do setting, polishing, finishing, sizing, plating, things like that where there are no fumes. The casting will be in Asia or India – India, basically.
For the rest of this article: https://magazine.cim.org/en/voices/shining-a-light-on-the-world-of-coloured-gems-en/