In the third workshop, Tracy Jukes (having a busy conference) divided it into three portions; the first part involved attendees examining a variety of treated coloured stones and synthetic stones; the second part concentrated on gem prices and the third part involved assessing the quality and value of over 30 gems.

For the final main presentation, David Thomas, the latest but one Crown Jeweller, regaled his audience with stories of his time in office serving Buckingham Palace. He joined the jewellers, Collingswood & Co. at seventeen, starting on the wage of three pounds, 10 shillings a week. He stayed for 28 years, moving to Garrard in 1986. At Garrard he trained for five years with the then Crown Jeweller, Bill Summers, until taking over in the role in 1991. Thomas recounted many interesting stories about handling the Imperial State Crown in preparation for the annual State Opening of Parliament, looking after the Queen Mother’s Crown set with the Koh-i-Noor diamond during the lying-in-state of the Queen Mother in Westminster in 2002, making inventory of the Queen Mother’s jewels following her death, and attending to the jewels of the Norwegian Royal family. Thomas retired as Crown Jeweller in 2007 and left Garrard in January 2009. Illustrated with many pictures of individual jewels, the talk was very informative and amusing: the highlight for me of the conference.

During the final workshop I attended, Barbara Leal, another busy person during the conference, demonstrated the practicalities of grading colour in gems. She spoke of the ‘warm’ colours red, orange and yellow and the ‘cool’ colours green and blue, showed the colour wheel and described the grades of clarity and cut. We were given various gems and asked to grade for colour, clarity and cut.