Parcel — A Group Sold as a Lot
Parcel — A Group Sold as a Lot
Trade term for a quantity of stones moved together at a per-carat price
A parcel, in the gem trade, is a group of gemstones offered or sold together as a single lot, typically of the same species and similar quality, size, or colour. Parcels range in scale from a few stones to thousands of carats, depending on the material and the level of the trade at which the transaction takes place. The word is one of the workhorses of trade vocabulary and has appeared in dealer correspondence and bourse practice for at least two centuries. A parcel may be a tightly graded matched lot of calibrated melee, a mixed run of medium-quality material, or anything in between.
How parcels are presented and priced
Dealers commonly present parcels for inspection in a folded parcel paper or in a sorting tray. The buyer examines the contents under controlled lighting and either accepts the parcel as-is at the offered per-carat price or negotiates on the basis of overall quality, size distribution, and any picked-out stones. Parcel pricing is most often expressed as a per-carat figure that, multiplied by the total weight, gives the parcel total. Some parcels are priced as a flat lot price rather than per-carat.
The standard parcel mode allows buyers to acquire material efficiently without the friction of negotiating each stone individually. The corresponding cost is that the buyer accepts an average across the parcel and forgoes the opportunity to cherry-pick the best stones at favourable per-stone pricing.
Mixed parcels
A mixed parcel — sometimes called a run — contains stones of varying quality, size, or colour and is common in calibrated melee, commercial-grade material, and bulk lots intended for setting in mass-production. The buyer treats the mixed parcel as a statistical population: a portion will be premium, a portion average, and a portion below grade, and the price reflects the expected blend.
In the trade
For Skyjems, parcel buying is the standard mode for melee, calibrated sapphire and ruby for sidestone work, and certain other commercial categories. We resort to per-stone selection for principal stones and for any material above the calibrated melee tier. Parcel buying requires a clear sense of the average quality the buyer is willing to accept and a discipline about not over-paying when the parcel includes weaker outliers.