Hi all,
Its Friday and time for another weekly update.

With the debut of the Amora lab gem (click here if you haven't seen it), I figured it was time to start a new thread/chapter for the blog to make it easier to follow.

Plus, it will be refreshing to continue the blog without withholding that minor detail that we were working on a lot more than just a new H&A cut

Very glad to see the positive response to our future product and one that will likely become our biggest product by far. We are working on finalizing production parameters and moving into actual production, but there is still some work there to be done. But at least now you know what is coming

One thing to clarify is that we'll continue to offer the 'Amora Enhanced Moissanite' for a while for those customers who may have to wait until 2015 before the Amora gem is available to them.

Thus, in 2012 we will have:
1 - Amora Gem (H&A rounds, etc)
2 - Amora Enhanced Moissanite (color improved moissanite by C&C)

After 2015, which is when their patent on 'silicon carbide gems' expires, the Amora Enhanced will be discontinued since I have no interest in putting money into C&C's pockets, and we'll only offer the Amora Gem.

Hardness testing for Amora gem - one topic I'll mention that may be of interest. We have gotten access to a large University's nanoindentation equipment, and that was how we were able to determine the exact hardness of the Amora gem (23% harder than sapphire).

We're hoping to be able to eventually test a number of gems and publish that as a paper in the future b/c the use of the Mohs scale is a pet peeve of mine...the Mohs scale is not used in Materials science b/c it is not a linear scale, nor is it very accurate, and was designed simply as a quick test for use in field geology in the 1800's. Under Mohs hardness, sapphire is 9 and diamond is 10, but sapphire is *not* 90% as hard as diamond...it is 30% as hard. So it leads to a lot of confusion.

By comparison, in nanoindentation testing - Diamond is 100 GPa, Sapphire is 30 Gpa...so the 30% as hard is very evident. And glass is 3-5 GPa (based on what ingredients added while making)...which now lets you see why Diamond Nexus claiming their 'revolutionary stone' cuts glass means about nothing.

Anyway, I figure its a bit like blending materials science into gemology and time for gemology to step into the current century...

On other news - the keylight test samples have arrived! These are the small keychain lights we did the poll on a few months back...they arrived with the Mira logo proudly engraved. So, great thing that we did not proceed with production on those yet or we'd have a few thousand Mira keychain lights to ship with the Amoras.

It looks like the keylights do what we want, which is to provide immediate lighting to view the brilliance of your Amora Moissy or future Amora gem. Thus, we'll have to finalize what type of keychain attachment to go with it (swivel, clip-on, etc) and see if they can put our new Amora logo on it and then we'll get those underway.

The Hungarian Natural History Museum did receive their display Amora H&A gem on Monday and they emailed that it was 'gorgeous' and were very happy to have it. They are working furiously on finishing up the display and I believe it opens on 11/15. After things settle down I'll see if they can take some photos of the display and we'll get those posted out for you to see it.

On other news:
1 - We'll have a large restock of Amora enhanced Moissanite rounds next week, including some of the sold out sizes. That will likely be the last restock before the holidays.

2 - We have a large batch of Asha H&A rounds in coating now, and those should finish up within the next week to week and a half. That will allow us to restock a number of sold out round sizes as well for the Asha H&A.

3 - We're going to expand our trademark filings for the Amora name into China and Hong Kong since I expect both will be large markets after 2015.

Anyway, thanks for the postive feedback from the Amora H&A gem debut. I'm excited about the Amora gem because its the first time we've been able to make a gem from the ground up - both Asha and the Amora enhanced were enhancements to existing gems (CZ and Moissanite by C&C) but this is a rare chance to really pull out all the stops and have a gem that is completely ours (and hopefully yours in the future

Have a great weekend,
Less

Excellent and very exciting Less!

I was wondering, next year, for those with mailboxes in non-patented countries, can we get a setting from Moissco with our Amora in it or can we order BTD rings/loose stones only?

I would really like a legacy repro with an Amora in it as a sister to my ering (so I can switch between the two :))

I can ship to NZ.

Congrats Less! What a beautiful stone! When you have a chance, could you please PM me with contact info? I'd like to become an Amora reseller in the near future.

Wow , Less this is amazing news!
I am not sure if this has been asked - regarding the F color, is that the only color option for the Amora? Will you be offering a warmer color option?? (Fingers crossed here!!)
PS.
Am really impressd you have been able to get an F color !!

Chapelle if you want a warmer color why not go for the current Amora enhanced moissy? or is it that you want a different cut?

Hi all,
Its Friday and time for another weekly update!

This week was of course the first week after the Amora debut and a lot of this week was really about 'back to business' on things that were delayed working towards the debut.

But, first updates on the Amora gem:

The Museum exhibit did open (Nov 15th) so I'm hoping we'll get a photo or two next week, ideally in time for next weeks update.

There was a lot of discussion regarding Amora gem vs. moissanite and clarifying that both Moissanite and Amora gem are different crystal structures, though both are composed of Silicon and Carbon.

The easiest example of this effect of crystal structure using the same elements is that of carbon - one crystal type is graphite, one is diamond...very different properties yet both are composed of carbon.

Anyway, to further help cement this, I'm enclosing two TEM (atomic level) images. This literally shows the atoms in the Amora gem structure and another crystal type of Silicon carbide...and I think will help show you how you can have two crystals that both use silicon and carbon.

Amora gem atomic level image:



Different polytype of silicon carbide:



Anyway, hopefully this lets you 'see' literally how at the atomic level the structure is very different...even though both are made of silicon and carbon.


That aside, the big focus this week was on starting the setup for production and sale of Amora gem. And, we tried a different growth option that did not work out, so that has led us to a big fork in the road.

Namely, is it better to get limited production underway sooner, or hold off and setup such that we could launch with about 10x the production volume. In other words limited availability sooner, or fuller availability later.

The lean right now is strongly towards delaying the launch longer so that we can have significantly more Amora volume available. Part of this is because the initial demand was strong enough that we've had intl dealers offering to buy our entire monthly production which of course would be very frustrating I am sure for retail customers....so we either ration (which means we get all kinds of emails explaining why they should be part of the 'rationed allocation' list or we simply hold off until we can launch with a large enough supply to better satiate demand).

We'll know more on this in the next two weeks, but for now, the launch date is going to be measured in months and not weeks as some people have asked.

There was some coverage of the Amora debut on some various luxury blogs and at least one article noted that the Amora gem could soon become one of the most sought after gems. However, they then stated that BTD had "learned from DeBeers" and was restricting supply under the guise of production difficulties.

Anyway, to clarify, the production issues are very real, not something cleverly designed to 'drive up demand' and that is what we have to resolve now.

On other news:
1 - We had a very large Asha restock for both princess and rounds. This restocked a number of sold out sizes except for 7.5mm (1.5ct) which are in cutting now.

2 - We have completed almost all of our model rings and these will start to be put out for sale at least over the next week (including the Regal and Helen of Troy ring).


Have a great weekend,
Less

good to know less!!

Do you have links to the discussion/articles?

...found some.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-12/lifestyle/30390556_1_diamond-crystal-earth

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/amora-the-ultimate-gem-makes-its-global-debut-133681578.html

Less, any restocks of Amora cushions coming soon?

Less, promise me you'll save some Amora gems for your ladies here at BTD since we may have to wait until 2015.....I'm going to be beyond upset if I can't get one when they come out because they are in too high of demand!