Enough with the Semi-Precious Gemstone Globes Already

My first encounter with the semi-precious gemstone globe was at an airport in the early 90s, well before the Internet boom. I was an in a globe store when an excited globe collector walked in armed with a photograph of a gem globe. He quickly showed the photograph to the store clerk and asked where he could find one of these amazing globes.

It was shortly after that I began seeing gem globes popping up in jewelry stores. When they first came out, they cost thousands of dollars, and every globe collector and obscenely wealthy executive had to have one. It was a couple of years later when these gem globes started showing up in department stores for a few hundred dollars. A couple of years after that, I started seeing these globes at Sam’s and Costco for a couple hundred dollars. Within just a few years, these gem globes had gone from exotic luxury items to common office/household showpieces.

I finally realized that the gemstone globe phenomenon had permanently lost its luster in the late 90s when I was globe shopping in a depressed area of the Mid-East and found miniature gem globes on sale at a cheesy tourist gift shop. There they were, dozens of the globes in all sorts of color-schemes like blue, black, red, yellow, green, and turquoise. Sandwiched between snow globes and commemorative plates were these once sought after treasures now available to anyone to use as a paperweight.

The reality is that I actually like gem globes. They are interesting and can sometimes look nice on the right stand and in the right setting. What I don’t understand is why retailers are still promoting these gem globes so heavily. Every time I try to search for a globe on the Web, at least a third of my results is littered with gem globe offers. Is there really still a demand for these? Don’t we all already have one or a few? Is there anyone left who has been sitting around for the last ten years saying, “Man, one of these days, I am going to make one of those gem globes mine.”?

What I am saying to the globe manufactures is, “Enough with the gem globes already. If we want more gem globes, we’ll find more. Just take a breather and come up with something new and exciting for the globe collectors. There has to be something fresh out there. Please make it and sell it to us.”

By the way, I am aware that this Web site constantly has gem globe advertisements on it. Sadly, I have almost no control over that. The gem globe companies probably just insist on advertising here because the audience is globe collectors. Maybe once the gem globe makers read this article, they’ll stop advertising here so much.