Let's get the frivolous question out of the way: Does Peter Schneirla, chief gemologist at the renowned New York-based jewellers, have breakfast at Tiffany's?

Gesturing at his cup of coffee and a plate of tea biscuits before him on a desk in the Ngee Ann City store, he laughs when you mention the title of the Truman Capote book and iconic Audrey Hepburn movie, and replies: 'Every day.'

In fact, some days, Tiffany & Co's top gem man hosts breakfasts for clients, staff or business associates.

He was in town last month, together with the company's president Jim Quinn, to attend an exclusive dinner thrown for VIP customers to celebrate its Simply Spectacular collection.

The travelling collection is a showcase of pieces drawn from this year's Blue Book, Tiffany's annual catalogue of one-of-a-kind designs by its master jewellers.

With an air of chummy, professional salesmanship about him, Schneirla, 54, is clearly passionate about jewellery, holding forth on topics from jewellery cleaning to rare heirlooms.

The New York City native's life-long fascination with minerals and gemstones began after he started hanging out at the Museum of Natural History, at which his socio-biologist uncle was a curator.

He recalls: 'The first day I came out of the gift shop, I had a dinosaur in one hand and a smoky quartz crystal in the other.

'Something happened. I thought: 'I got it!' about the magic of nature.'

He adds: 'The fact that this crystal is this very hard material forming this spectacular, almost artistic shape, and yet with surfaces that are highly polished as anything man could do. I understood how amazing it was.'

In 1977, he applied to the prestigious Gemological Institute of America (GIA) - to the initial panic of his scholar father and homemaker mother - after chancing upon a job ad in the New York Times.

Between 1984 and 1993, he worked for Tiffany & Co, holding posts such as vice-president of its diamond office and senior vice-president of jewellery merchandise and manufacturing.

Then he went on to become the executive vice-president of worldwide sales at American jeweller Harry Winston; as well as owned and operated P.C. Schneirla, which specialised in the sale of fine gemstones and jewellery to private customers.

He rejoined Tiffany & Co in November last year where he was appointed his present role which involves advising customers on selecting jewellery and explaining the merits of various gemstones and settings.

He also advises on the sourcing and acquisition of exceptional stones, while juggling media interviews and lectures on gemology.

Urban got an exclusive chance to pick his brain on buying and caring of one's jewels.

How can you tell if you're getting a good-quality gem?

Factors include these: How strong is the colour? How pure? How clean is the material? And how beautifully cut is it? And (the analysis of) those factors for coloured stones are based on expertise and experience, more so than for colourless diamonds, which have a language that people understand internationally.

Never buy a stone from a piece of paper. Make sure you look at enough stones so you know what you're buying. Educate yourself, train your eye, put in the time.

So, is Internet shopping for jewels advisable?

No. You can't reduce this business into a piece of paper. We still always recommend our customers to look at the stone. You can have two diamonds read exactly the same - in terms of weight and so on - on the report. But one can look dramatically better than the other.

What's the most important thing to know before buying a gem?

Know your merchant. Hallmarks of a good merchant are integrity, honesty and expertise. If a merchant starts offering you a discount immediately, how can you have confidence in that person?

It's also amazing to me the number of people who over-emphasise the mounting before buying the diamond.

A Tiffany's cultured South Seas pearls necklace. Prices start from $6,500. - Photo: Richard Pierce

The value of a diamond ring is in the diamond so much more than it's in the mounting.

When it comes to engagement rings, is size truly the thing that matters?

If you ask a professional, it's quality that matters. To the lay person, colour is going to be very obvious.

I'd just sold a friend a D-colour diamond ring. We were shopping one day and this woman came up to her and said: 'Oh, I admire your diamond'. And she stuck her diamond ring out.

And my friend put hers next to it. And the woman was just devastated because hers was not a good colour.

What about the old adage that the groom should spend two months' salary on an engagement ring?

I try (he says jokingly) to encourage people to spend five years' salary.

No. That was a very well-promoted notion by the De Beers organisation, but it caught on because it was such a powerful marketing group.

But we don't get into those things today. It really depends on who the customer is.

Any tips on how to get a good stone for those on a budget?

Let your heart pick what you want. Don't be compromised by your budget. If you want an emerald, you'll be able to pick one in your price range.

You've got to do your homework.

If you say, I want to look for cat eyes, we could go to every jewellery store in Singapore and I guarantee you'll find the stone that's a bargain.

So do you spend a lot of time hanging out at jewellery shops?

Only my own. Only Tiffany. I spend a lot of time looking at material at auction houses, wholesalers' and miners'.

What would you recommend to young women who want to build up their own jewellery collection?

They should start building their wardrobe with a coloured stone they can wear a lot. I'm going to say you'll want a blue stone in that case. So sapphire, blue tourmaline, aquamarine, blue spinel... They're cool colours so they go with any other colour much more readily than a warm-coloured stone.

What type of gems suit Asian skin and hair colour, generally speaking?

The wearer's complexion is more important for things that touch the skin. For example, pearls. White pearls with a pink overtone look best on very fair skin. Yellow pearls look best on olive complexions.

If you have brunette girls, you probably want to lighten things up and make them brighter. So red and green gems would probably suit them better.

What should husbands and boyfriends know about picking out jewellery as gifts?

The key is to choose something that they can wear a lot. You're better off getting something that's a little bit more traditional. If it looks good now, it'll look good later.

And if the clueless giver is really strapped for time, what's the fool-proof gift that's guaranteed to be a hit?

Earrings. You start with diamond studs, which can be worn to casual lunches and formal dinners. Or studs on a wire. After she has those, you can get metal earrings, or metal mixed with stones.

If you're set on diamonds, you can have diamonds in a cluster, or with pearls.

Earrings are like shoes. You can have 20 or 40 pairs. But rings, you're really going to have about three great rings - one of which will probably be your engagement ring.

HIS TOP THREE FAVOURITES

1 When I was with Tiffany in 1984, one of my responsibilities was to be in charge of the second-hand or estate department.

Somebody came to me and said: Take a look at this 19th-century brooch (Photo 4). I knew right away that I was looking at something extremely important - albeit not value-wise.

It's in the garland style, with Mississippi River pearls and Montana sapphires. The gold mounting is ribboned and very deep, and the top edge is enamelled.

And it had a Tiffany stamp and a little special symbol on it. I knew I had to have it.

I went to my chief financial officer and said I had to have the money to buy the brooch. I had to twist him pretty hard to get the money. It was less than US$7,000.

It's now the cornerstone of the Tiffany permanent collection (which has more than 200 pieces, and is on a three-month exhibition in Korea). So all the pieces and wonderful history we've been able to buy back since and put together were born out of me just being a young kid... in love with this piece. That was November 1984.

I found out later that this piece was designed by Paulding Farnham, working together with the great American gemologist George Frederick Kunz, and it was included in the Paris Exposition of 1900 and won an award. And that was what the special stamp I mentioned indicated.

This is my No.1 one favourite piece of all time. Not of the highest value in the world, although very rare.

2 A padpardscha, a sapphire that is a mix of colours between pink and orange, which I saw on a trip to Hong Kong in 1985.

The term is a Sri Lankan word that describes a perfect sunset or a lotus blossom. This stone was beautiful - oval, and it glowed. It was a colour that was both very sharp and very soft at the same time.

It was owned by a Mr Han, a gem dealer who was a friend of a gem dealer I knew. He was an old Chinese man, an amazing guy and a jade expert. I expressed a fantastic interest in that stone but he wouldn't sell it to me.

I saw him only that one time. I went back to New York and forgot about that stone. One day, two gem dealers came to my office and passed a paper-wrapped parcel over to me. I opened it and it was the stone.

They told me that Mr Han had died. Before that, he had told his wife that I was to have the opportunity to buy that stone.

I did. I repolished it and put a very big price on it because you can never find another one like it. I sold that to the first person - a woman - I showed it to.

It's one of the few stones I really adored but I don't know where it is today. I recently bought a huge collection of padpardschas and, with every stone, I think about that one.

3 A diamond that I cut from a rough stone of over 100 carats. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I hated cutting it because it was just magic on its own.

We ended up with a 47-carat, absolutely magnificent diamond. It was sold to a European buyer, somebody who had never bought an important piece of jewellery before. The man paid, the woman wore it.

This article was first published in Urban, The Straits Times on Apr 24, 2008.