where to buy Larimar rocks

Mysterious

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Nov 4, 2012
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Hello

I would like to know if there is a main market or a store to buy larimar rocks.

When I search downtown i find some stores having Larimar rocks but each store has few rocks which isn't a good collection to choose.

so if anyone know where to get the Larimar beside the other natural stuff like the thick pink sea shell, and the amazing black coral they call Negrita,* please give me the name and address of this place.


Thanks a lot in advance :)
 

AlterEgo

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Jan 9, 2009
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You don't say where you are in DR. The larimar is from the Barahona area, mostly around Barahouco. Sounds like you're just looking for the rocks, not set in jewelry???? That would probably be the place to go. Depending on the size your looking for, and if you want them raw or polished.

We saw a lot of roadside stands with bottles filled with larimar stones out there, but they are small.
 

tommeyers

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Jan 2, 2012
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Rough and finished in Los jardines STI. Also amber. Beware of fakes and know how to identify them. I was in the store yesterday. I facet stones and I want to make a flat but faceted larimar for bezel setting.

What do you want to do with them?

Tom
 

Mysterious

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Nov 4, 2012
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well I want it raw to use it in mosaic art, i make micro mosaic jewelry using natural stone and marble and it'll be amazing if i'll use larimar to, so i need raw rocks without polishing.

how can I know it's real or fake and if you can give me detailed address of this place you mentioned "Los jardines STI"

I appreciate your help
 
May 29, 2006
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Be very careful about buying Larimar. There was a run on it for export about 10-15 years ago, which flooded the European market and then made the value drop. Meanwhile the cost of mining it went up and the quality of what was being sold went down.. WAY down. I bought about a kilo of the stuff in slabs and found there was huge loss in weight in order to get good cabs made out of it. On my last trip, only about 1% of the Larimar I saw was worth buying. A very good cab is worth over $10/gram, but most of what you see now looks like toothpaste with no chatoyancy at all. Good larimar is not fully opaque and will not have any matrix in it at all. With rocks, it's a total crap shoot and they've already been topped by experts.

I found I had much better luck with amber, though you have to be careful of the fake stuff.. I tripled my money on Amber and barely got half back on the Larimar.
 

Mysterious

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Nov 4, 2012
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Thank you PeterInBrat for the useful info, that's why I'm skeptical and dont wanna buy until I find a good source or store, I think amber will be nice to use in mosaic jewelry so I'll take some.
 

kfrancis

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Jan 8, 2002
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rockharddesigns.com
Observation from the Frontier: Larimar sources

You really need to travel to the Southwest part of the country, its source, to get the best value when buying Larimar. The cheapest cost will be directly from the mines near Bahoruco but here they really line up waiting for the touristas. However, if you are with someone who knows what they are doing it is still the cheapest source.

Next will be Bahoruco itself where most of the miners live and small workshops abound throughout the town. Again, knowing what you are looking for or being with someone who knows the town ( market ) will help get you get the best deal.

Next in line will be Barahona. However, here you really need to know who you are dealing with because I have heard tales of unsuspecting buyers getting taken, no stones No money !!

However, it is in Barahona where I now make almost all of my Larimar purchases. From raw stones, to unpolished slabs ( Chappa ), to finished stones...cabs, pendants, nuggets, beads etc. After nearly fifteen ( 15 ) years of buying I can basically put in an order for just what I want, size, shape, polished and drilled and have it delivered to me on demand. I also seem to get a " first look " at a lot of Larimar before it moves on down the marketing chain.

In an earlier life, pre RD, I was a jeweler, both as a designer and on the bench. I have a very " select " group of clients for whom I spend most of my year here buying Larimar to their particular specs. Even have one, out of Tucson, who is a master craftsman in the " mirco " type of jewelry you mentioned was your craft.

To end this Observation I will say that if you ever get out this way I will be glad to assist you in whatever way I can. I usually have some 4 - 5,000 grams of " hand selected " Larimar laying around the house at any any point in time. I also am into searching the Bahoruco Mountains for other unusual stones which I cut, shape and polish here in Cabral. Have had a " bounty" for anything unusual that the mountain folks come across for quite some time. Still wish I could find that old man again from Polo who showed me a pigeon sized blue crystal. When I asked where he found it, he just smiled and pointed back up into the mountains behind us.

take care,

KFrancisco de Cabral
 
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HUG

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Feb 3, 2009
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If you don't know who he is talking about, pop along to Plaza Real (juan Dolio) or the Boathouse (Boca Chica) before 5pm most week days you'll find him in one of these establishments. Top nice friendly guy, just doing a bit on the side. But most importantly a trusted member of the Expat community not to snide you.
 

HUG

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Sliding off but not completely off topic, what is the attraction in this stone. It is not that valuable, not that pretty, and looks very cheap, even if is very expensive. I have no understanding of this stone. 14 years ago I was told on beach that is came from underneath the reef off of the North coast (obviously that is more than likely BS, but didn't care and so didn't concern myself). Surely that's not a good thing though.

I have not even googled this, as I would like to hear what the guys have to say about the harvesting and value of this rock.
 
May 29, 2006
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Most Larimar has nothing special about it. The good stuff is semi-opaque deep blue with milky white veins and can have some interesting color shifts when you twist it in the light. There are very few blue stones out there. You've got Lapis, Turquois(which is more green than blue and almost always fake!), Sodalite, and Larimar. Larimar is the only one that isn't always opaque.

It's still relatively unknown outside of the DR and the DR is the ONLY place in the world it can be found. It's sometimes sold on other Caribbean islands but all of the stones come from a handful of mines.

Good larimar is distinct. A good stone can be picked out of 100s, ten years after you see it for a few minutes. That is one more reason why it's sought after.

I just googled "Larimar" and "AAA" on Google and I did not see one stone in the first five pages that I would grade as AAA. I saw at least a half dozen fake stones labeled as larimar. I also suspect they are starting to dye low grade larimar. The good stuff is VERY hard to get now and the rest isn't worth the bother.

Here's one of the stones I got about 10 years ago. It's huge for a larimar slab, just under 6" across. I'm keeping it unfinished, but I have another about 4" across I might make into a big old Texas style belt buckle.. It's not AAA either, but it's a nice conversation piece.

10399659_1090695745116_3087_n.jpg
 
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HUG

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Feb 3, 2009
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The fact that it is only mined in such a small area should make the stone more valuable than it is, Dominican Strikes back or simply not marketed correctly. People with a lot of money like stuff others don't have. From what you say, true blue is pretty exclusive and rare, so why is there no value. Seems odd and I can't believe a market that has not been played with. It is a shame because the facts say there is value there, but it is so unknown that the value is not recognized. Still, not worth the punt on future earnings, not just yet!

If it is true that it is only found in the region then it has potential that is just silly value, but do we know......
 
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malko

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Jan 12, 2013
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I find it pretty.......

Also since it is only found in the dr it makes nice presents for folks back home.......
The dr should advertise it more, kind of like present it as the national stone....... just a thought. ( what else can u take back home from the dr ?? First year brugal, second year coffee, than......well thats about it.......).
 

HUG

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If it does come from under the reefs then it is best that awareness is kept to a minimum. Sure our reefs are worth more than money. Can you imagine the state of the Reefs if these people knew fortunes lay in there, and small swim of dingy trip to money? No! Like wildlife Dominicans would desolate it, and in turn kill off fishing!
 
May 29, 2006
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Much of it is lack of information about it. Everyone thinks they know what Turquoise is, though the vast majority out there is fake, made from dyed Howlite. There isn't enough of it to start a real marketing campaign and it's still a very new stone. I think it was only discovered around 1975, and before tourism took off in the DR, it was just a blue stone someone found. It's value comes now mostly from tourists who want something that is distinctly from the DR. It doesn't help that the stuff on the beaches is crap and mounted in cheap settings with superglue. A couple months in the shops in the salt air and the silver is already tarnished when you buy it.

It's the rarity of quality that is the biggest problem. There's no agreed way to grade larimar so anything with a hint of blue is labeled as AAA. This brings down the value of the good stuff. As with most stones in this range, the real value is in the settings, which almost always suck in the DR. If you go to a nice jewelry shop though, you can see the good stuff mounted in gold. It's a hard stone to work with since each one has its own qualities...

It doesn't come from reefs, btw.. It's volcanic in origin, crystallized lava tubes that absorb copper from the ground as it cools.
 

HUG

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My Sister bought a piece when she was visiting, from the guy I mentioned above (Plaza Real and BoatHouse, just sits with his cloth and gems out on the bar) quite a while ago. She got a piece around the size of a 5Pso piece. I remember her telling me how much it cost and I was surprised at how little, as this guy is a popular vendor of the stuff and so i expected more than RD5,500 I think she paid.
If it is indeed mined from land (volcanic rock sits mainly under water level anyway) then it should be bought and minned accordingly. But my guess is that is is difficult to mine as it has created the reefs through volcanic spews, and is why is not harvested as I would expect.

I am a guesser on what I know, and so I say what I think, not what I know, but I usually think things because I know something else.:D
 

Mysterious

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Nov 4, 2012
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I would like to thank you all for the help, and this became a very informative thread for me to read again from the beginning,

to answer HUG about the value of this stone specifically for me I'll say that I never used any of this hard to but stone before but the colors of larimar seducing me to try, although it's gonna be difficult in the beginning to work on assembling a special wet saw machine to cut it, but it worth the effort and money for sure.


beside the rarity of this stone because no one has or use it where I live.

but i agree that mining should be organized by the government, but more attention should be directed to more rare stone which is the shiny black coral.

The good news is I just got my first rock as an exchange with one of my mosaic jewelry, while walking in the colonial zone.

its amazing how much this country contain of natural treasures but people don't care about it.