Thanks for the reply, not much there yet, bidbitcoins looks promising. Bitcoin supporters should be actively using and/or developing [a massive] auction site, I know I'm going to start buying things with bitcoins to do my part.

The downside might be we will lose the "anonymous" aspect if we start shipping things to one another, but with general goods (typical ebay stuff) shouldn't be a big issue. 

He lost 10,000 BTC in the MyBitcoin scandal. From now on he's going to use the standard client, and encrypt the wallet.dat with truecrypt, and back it up on Dropbox. And he's looking into deterministic private keys. That might be the safest way to save his horde.

I understood the main reason for this legislation was to close the anonymous pre-paid phone accounts... that is they are not happy that you can use a phone without it being tied to your name/address. The whole thing is silly, however, as those with criminal intent will just use others credentials to purchase.

I have a rather large sapphire I was considering testing out for promotional purposes on your site, but I'm not willing to give up personal information so that's kind of a deal breaker for me. I was trying to find a good use for that thing in promotions though, so I'll need to come up with some new ideas.

Today I would like to unveil a new project which will be online one month from today. BitGem.org has been a while in the making, between finding and working with investors, purchasing inventory, and deciding how the company was going to be run. I am unveiling it now because the product has been received, and I will post pictures in a couple of days of our initial offerings.

What is BitGem?
BitGem is two things. The first is a storefront for anyone wishing to purchase precious stones using nothing but bitcoins. This storefront will differentiate itself from many other bitcoin stores by pegging our products to Bitcoins. The rate of currency to bitcoin might fluctuate rapidly, but once a stone has been listed it's price will not change no matter where the exchange markets are. I am willing to take a loss on this, but I believe personally that the biggest issue with Bitcoin today is that with very little exceptions everything is pegged to the dollar. I and my investors have faith in the Bitcoin market, and we'll see where that leads us.

The second feature of BitGem is as a speculative side. When you purchase a gem, you will have two choices, either I can ship it to you immediately, or you can pay a fee to have me re-list the gem as for sale at a price you define. This will combine with the fact that I won't list similar stones within a set period means that if you purchase a stone, I sell them all, and people still want them, then you will have the option to sell at a profit. Considering the rate of bitcoin to dollars could fluctuate, as could the cost of gemstones themselves, there is some interesting potential for profit here.

When you purchase a stone you will know exactly how many are remaining in my stock. At any point you may request the stone be sent out to you, and this will be done as soon as possible.

What kind of stock will BitGem have?
As it currently stands, we have a stock of Peridot, Garnets, and Sapphires available. There are talks right now of emeralds, but these haven't been purchased yet. Requests for future product absolutely will be taken into consideration, and we will expand as demand dictates.

What kind of prices are these going for?
Prices will be reasonable, with most semi-precious stones falling between 1-2 bitcoins. The price will obviously be effected by things like the kind of stone, the carat weight, desirability, etc. Obviously stones like the sapphires will be more.

What condition are these stones in?
All are in brand new condition and faceted. Should you choose to mount one of these stones, you would likely have no problems doing so.

What about business practices?
BitGem will work in two ways. The first is that we as a company will be completely above the table. Income will be reported to the proper authorities and taxed respectively. We will not suddenly vanish due to a failure to disclose.

Secondly, we care greatly about privacy. This includes both our own and yours. I understand there is recent mistrust recently due to some wallet stealing, and it is for this reason we will not be hosting anything more than a storefront online. Both for the sake of keeping track of an exchange, and as a precaution against having our data compromised, we have decided to take the unusual step of doing as much as possible in hardcopies.

One of the downsides to this obviously is that I will not have a real name or phone number listed for either myself or my investors. It is for this reason that we will start with the smaller inventory until trust is gained. We know you have no reason to trust us initially, so we would rather a good track record speak for itself. Considering a majority of this business would be small transactions, that should establish some level of security for buyers right there.

When will you open for business?
The site will go fully live very early in September. This allows us some time to work out any remaining logistics, secure some extra inventory, and --most importantly, hear feedback from the community.

As far as we know, this is the first time a commodity has been pegged to Bitcoins at a fixed exchange rate. We're incredibly excited to see this happening finally and as it stands there isn't much that can go wrong as long as the demand is there. I understand the only reputation I have at this point is from my posts on the forum, but I would ask that anyone interested please at least try our service when it goes online.

In the meantime, I would very much like to hear questions, comments and concerns you might have.

-Gilgamesh

Thanks,  if you choose it I'll send over the PSD file as well... Some type is rasterized, but it can be easily re-done to be fully type/path based (with the exception of the coin image which was taken from skull88 here on the forum: http://bitcointalk.org/?topic=687.0.)

In all fairness, if you select this image, I will split the proceeds with skull88.  His BTC address is in the quote below if you'd like to send his share directly to him.
I would double check with him via PM to ensure that wallet address wasn't with one of the recent casualties of greed though...

Is nice.. But I will accept half of whatever you were going to pay him!