About Us
Since 1990
I’m Phuong — it means phoenix in Vietnamese, so friends abroad call me Phoenix. I’m a second-generation gem trader. My family has bought and sold stones at the Luc Yen market since 1990, from the ruby-fever years to a remarkable cobalt spinel strike we sold at the mine in 2020.
Luc Yen is a mountainous district in northern Vietnam and the country’s most important source of colored gemstones — ruby, red spinel, and the world’s only meaningful source of cobalt blue spinel. Most foreign buyers stop in Bangkok and never come this far. That is exactly why the finest Vietnamese stones so rarely reach the world with an honest voice attached. We are trying to change that.
How we work
- Photos unedited. What you see is the stone in daylight — no saturation tricks, especially with cobalt blue.
- Treatments always disclosed. In writing, on every stone. “Natural” and “unheated” are different claims, and we never blur them.
- Origin named down to the valley. We tell you which market table or which pit a stone came from — because we were standing there.
- Lab reports on premium stones. Lotus Gemology and GIA for the stones that deserve them.
On YouTube I test stones on camera in Vietnamese for 48,000 subscribers. Here, I do the same in English. And every Sunday I still face the same market women I have known for years — which is the real reason a reputation in Luc Yen is worth protecting.
“I’ll be facing the same market women next Sunday — reputations here are for life.”