Between global expeditions in search of precious gems, Santa Barbara gem trader Dana Schorr would regale friends with tales from Tanzania, Tibet, and points beyond, where village miners armed with picks, shovels, and sieves still seek precious jewels in muddy pits, as they have since biblical times.
Schorr specialized in “colored stones” — rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and lesser-known gemstones. According to the Wall Street Journal, the colored-gem trade is dominated by adventurers like Schorr, “who wander some of the globe’s most dangerous and underdeveloped places in search of treasure.”
Schorr grew up in Santa Barbara and attended San Marcos High. Dark eyes flashing and a black mane of hair tumbling over his shoulders, he abandoned school to follow his own path in the early 1970s.