Starter Kit. Idea 240 of 500. Cluster 12
A Ceylon sapphire brand for engagement rings, sold online to Sri Lankans abroad and beyond, with the stone's story traced from pit to finger
The mechanism, from the book
The sapphire is mined here and cut here, and its value is certified in Basel and turned into money in Geneva. Every step of that chain can be built at home, and the first one is the piece of paper.
The first step
Choose 5 certified Ceylon sapphires from a licensed dealer on memo, photograph each with its report and its mine, and post them on a simple page shared in groups for Sri Lankans abroad. Offer each set in a ring made to order. The proof is one deposit and the questions buyers ask about traceability.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan couple abroad buying an engagement ring who wants a Ceylon sapphire with proof of where it came from and who touched it.
- What leaves today
- Ceylon sapphires sold in rings abroad carry a foreign jeweller's name and margin, and the buyer cannot trace the stone back to the island.
Ask first
- National Gem and Jewellery Authority. Ask what certificate a sapphire must carry to be sold abroad as Ceylon.
- Sri Lanka Customs. Ask what paperwork a single ring needs to be posted abroad.
Check before you spend
Whether each stone has a laboratory report you can show, how rings are insured in the post, and what returns policy a buyer abroad expects.
Find out these three numbers
- What do engagement rings with Ceylon sapphires sell for abroad?
- How many enquiries become a sale?
- What does insured shipping of one ring cost?
A comparison from the book
Ethiopia. Chapter Eleven
"The money is in what Ethiopia did not control: the roasting, the shipping, the shops, the customer."
Own the customer and the shop, not only the stone, or the famous name earns little.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.