Idea 246 of 500. Cluster 12: The gem chain, from Ratnapura to the certificate
Short gemmology courses for foreign buyers and jewellers, taught in Ratnapura with real stones and a microscope
The mechanism, from the book
The sapphire is mined here and cut here, and its value is certified in Basel or Lucerne 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.
Every idea in cluster 12 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Ask a qualified gemmologist in Ratnapura whether they would teach a 3-day course for foreign buyers: grading by eye, using the microscope and spotting treated stones, with a dealer's real stones on the table. Write the days and a price per student on one page, and send it to 5 jewellers abroad and 2 jewellery schools. Three paid places make the first class.
- Who pays first
- A jeweller abroad who buys Sri Lankan sapphires through others and wants to learn to judge a stone before paying for it.
- What leaves today
- Buyers learn gemmology elsewhere and trust a certificate from Basel; teaching it in Ratnapura brings them to the source and builds trust in the stones and the people who sell them.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
The sapphires in the island's inventory - Ch. SixteenThe Bridge
Basel, Geneva and the Swiss gem bridge
More from cluster 12
- 236A gem laboratory in Colombo to the standard of the Swiss ones, with a foreign partner if it must, so the origin report is issued where the stone was mined
- 237Jewellery design studios employing the young designers who now leave for Bangkok and Dubai
- 238A Ratnapura mine visit sold as a day, with a licensed dealer and a laboratory report on anything you buy
- 239Gem-cutting apprenticeships, paid, with the graduates employed by the studios above
- 240A Ceylon sapphire brand for engagement rings, sold online to Sri Lankans abroad and beyond, with the stone's story traced from pit to finger
- 241Auction days in Colombo for the trade, with international buyers flown in, the way Geneva does it twice a year
Idea 246 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.