Biography

Simon & Laurie Watt

     We began our career in the Colored Gemstone business in 1981 when we started our first company Watt Gems from our dining room table in Hollywood, Ca. Simon had come from the accountancy profession and Laurie had been managing the American office of the German cutter Hans Dieter Haag of Idar Oberstein. Neither of us had any family background or formal training in the gem business but we soon found that both of us shared a passion for coloured gemstones. We opened our first office in 1983 on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills and while over the next ten years we moved a couple of times we
remained on Beverly Drive until 1993. During that time we maintained very close relationships with the cutting community in Idar Oberstein and developed a reputation for dealing in the fine and unusual. 
     
     We both began traveling around the United States, to sell our wares, in the early eighties and have developed strong business relationships, not to mention friendships, within the manufacturing and retail jewelry community throughout the United States. In 1987 we further consolidated or ties with Idar Oberstein by forming the partnership of Mayer & Watt with a third generation cutter from there. This partnership ended in 1996 but not the relationship or the name. Along with the customer base we have built we have developed a network of cutters and miners from every corner of the gem-producing world from whom we source our gemstones. 

     We have always had a particular passion for African stones and material from Brazil but in recent years we have made many trips also to the Far East and in particular to Sri Lanka where we have managed to procure many unusual Sapphires, especially in some of the more unique and unusual fancy colors. Along with the gem quality of our material, ever since our early relationships with Idar Oberstein we have always had a reputation for very well cut gemstones, often with unique and fancy cuts. Over the past years of the existence of the Spectrum Design Competition we have had more than twenty customers of ours win awards in this competition using gemstones purchased from our company. 

     Simon served on the Board of the American Gem Trade Association for nine years and held the office of Vice President for the six years.In 2002 Mayer and Watt was named the Jewlery Designers Supplier of the year. In 1993 we moved our company and two children to a small town in northern Kentucky to improve our quality of life and raise our children in a slightly saner world. While our home life has slowed down considerably we continue to travel the world in search of the rarest and finest of gemstones.