Getting your stone to you.

Every order inside the United States ships free by USPS Priority Mail, insured for its full value and tracked from the moment it leaves my hands. There is no minimum and no threshold to clear.

Parcels of $1,000 or more go out with signature required on delivery. If nobody is there to sign, USPS holds the parcel at your local post office rather than leaving a gemstone on a doorstep.

Stones that are already finished ship within 3 to 5 business days.

Commissions ship when they are cut. The current queue and cutting time are on the commission page, which is the one place I keep that number up to date.

You get tracking by email as soon as the parcel is scanned.

Write to me at michael@maikurumotogems.com within 48 hours of delivery, or of the expected delivery date if the parcel never arrived. Insurance is on every shipment, so a lost or damaged stone is covered and I file the claim, not you. Photographs of the packaging help.

International shipping is arranged case by case. Write to me before ordering and I will confirm whether I can ship to you, quote the cost, and tell you what documentation is involved. Customs duties and import taxes charged by your country are yours to pay and are not included in the shipping cost.

• Finished stones and standard cuts are paid in full at checkout.
• Bespoke commissions, meaning work quoted individually rather than ordered from the standard cuts, run on a 50% deposit. The deposit is non-refundable once cutting begins, because it pays for design work and bench time rather than for material. The balance is due before the stone ships or changes hands.

I am in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. If you are nearby and would rather collect a finished stone in person, or bring me rough to look at, write to me and we will arrange a time. Everything is by appointment.

I will cut client-supplied rough, but I look at it first. Not everything is worth putting on the machine, and I would rather tell you that before you have spent anything. I assess clarity, structural integrity, inclusions and likely yield, then give you a straight answer and a proposed plan. If it is not suitable and you would rather not proceed, you get it back, either at our next meeting or by insured mail at your cost.

Faceting is irreversible, and some of what happens is decided by the rough rather than by me.

• Material loss. Every stone loses weight in cutting. How much depends on the species, the shape, and the piece in front of me.
• Fracture and cleavage. Internal fractures and cleavage planes are not always visible from the surface. Rough can break or chip on the machine because of what was already inside it.
• What gets revealed. Cutting opens up the interior. Inclusions and color zoning the rough was hiding can turn out to be there.

Leaving rough with me means accepting those risks. I am answerable for my workmanship, not for what the material was always going to do. If something unexpected happens I will tell you promptly and we will decide together how to proceed.

Jewelers and designers with recurring work are welcome. Standing arrangements, priority scheduling and volume terms are all worth a conversation. The terms above apply unless we have agreed something else in writing.