Computer Guru Reinvents Self as Top Gem Collector

First to go was the 60-carat tanzanite.

Then, a rare 36-carat tsavorite garnet, sparkling like an emerald. Later, the serpentine tiara with a 242-carat tanzanite.

One gorgeous stone after another was vanishing from the market during the 1980s, but no one could figure out which aficionado, under the alias “White Rose,” was behind the buys.

“A few isolated murmurings began to quietly pass among those in the collecting community that ‘something big’ was happening in the gem world as important stone after important stone disappeared from the market,” said Joel Bartsch, curator of gems and minerals at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

It’s natural enough that no one thought to look at Michael M. Scott, lifelong computer devotee, adopter of stray cats, a man who never even wore rings during his career. But after leaving his job as the first president of Apple Computer in 1981, Scott entered the world of jewelry with a passion, putting together a gemstone collection that experts say rivals the holdings of royalty. Unlike most royalty, he has his own gemology lab.

First Time Collection on Public Display

A portion of Scott’s collection will go on public display for the first time today at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana.

“The gems he’s collected are extremely rare, and they’re impressively large examples,” said Elise B. Misiorowski, director of the Carlsbad-based Gemological Institute of America.

Scott’s collection is noted for its rainbow range of colors and the rarity of the stones, including black, pink and yellow diamonds, red emeralds and pinkish-orange sapphires.

The owner of this glittering trove is a quiet, 59-year-old bachelor, who lives on five acres in Los Altos with four cats. He sees the humor in his story line: computer exec turned obsessive collector.

Scott first made waves at Apple Computer when he helped launched the Apple II personal computer and took the company public in 1980. After clashing with founder Steve Jobs, he left the next year with tens of millions of dollars worth of company stock.

Seventeen years ago, he shook off decades of habit to start buying his stones. Jewelry was frowned on in the computer world. In fact, wearing jewelry near the computers was banned when he took his first college-level computer class at age 13.

“The first thing you were told was that you absolutely couldn’t wear any rings. Never wear rings,” said Scott, recalling the days when data was fed into computers by punch card. If an operator was wearing a ring that made a dent on the card, the machine could jam, he said. “That stayed with me.”

“After I left Apple in 1981, I was trying not to be a Type A personality anymore and realized I could have a piece of jewelry now,” he said. “There are no punch cards around anymore.”

Scott usually rotates portions of his collection among various banks. The stones are the easiest way to turn wealth into beauty, he said. And he thinks each stone touches the viewer in a different way.

“You’ll find your hand always shakes a little bit,” he said during the show’s setup two weeks ago, as he gently lifted the 9-ounce white-gold tiara set with the massive tanzanite, a deep-blue stone found in Africa. The gem in the tiara is largest of its kind and is surrounded by hundreds of tiny diamonds and light-green tsavorite garnets from Africa. It is the centerpiece of the exhibition.

Scott’s gemstones, shown in 125 groupings for the Bowers’ “Gems! The Art and Nature of Precious Stones,” include the world’s largest known faceted gemstone: a 220-pound sculpted quartz crystal.

“Michael is a unique collector in his ... determination to get the rough and cut examples of virtually every gem species of exceptional size and color,” Misiorowski said. “He’s amassed the most amazing gem collection I’ve ever heard about.”

Scott’s collection also features a necklace with the world’s two largest benitoites--bluish-violet gems found only in a small area of San Benito County. Jeffrey Post, curator of the Smithsonian’s collection of more than 10,000 gems, met Scott several years ago. He said of the Bowers show, “This is the first public exhibition in a museum where a major portion of his collection is going to be on exhibit.”

Scott has shown his gems at private gatherings in Germany, Seattle and Los Angeles. He searched for six years for a museum that would agree to show the breadth of his collection and give him creative freedom. He was introduced to Bowers President Peter C. Keller by gem photographer Erica Van Pelt, who had worked with both men. Keller, a gemologist with a doctorate in geology from the University of Texas at Austin, is curating the show.

The exhibit has three parts: an introduction to gemology; a display of colored stones in a wide range of sizes; and gems incorporated into jewelry and sculpture, such as a 10-carat Burmese “pigeon’s blood” ruby in an antique ring and a 64-carat royal-blue Sri Lankan sapphire set in a golden cobra, and raw uncut stones.

Scott said the pieces he’s showing at the Bowers--a fifth of his collection--are worth about $20 million.

Narrowly Avoided an Expensive Mistake

He started during the 1980s with a stone that he thought was a 7-carat tsavorite. When he insisted on proof of the gem’s quality, he learned that he had nearly been duped into buying an artificial stone. He found another 7-carat tsavorite, a real one this time. But, determined not to be misled again, he delved into gemology, becoming an expert on minerals and building a gem lab. In his early collecting days, he traveled the world to make his purchases. Buyers and dealers now come to him.

The 7-carat tsavorite, one of Scott’s most treasured pieces, is in the Bowers show.

“One of the nice things about it is that everyone thinks it’s an emerald,” Scott said. “And that’s part of the reason for the show. People just think reds are for rubies, blues are for sapphires, greens are for emeralds. But there’s so much more.

“Part of why I collect and show is because it’s fun, whereas some collectors just hoard and keep it to themselves. I want to show the stones for others to enjoy and to see all this natural beauty that Earth creates herself.”