Starter Kit. Idea 250 of 500. Cluster 12
Garnet, spinel and the lesser stones marketed as a range, since they are mined anyway and thrown into parcels
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
Find out from 5 dealers in Ratnapura what they do with the garnets, spinels and other lesser stones in their parcels and what they would sell them for. Buy a small lot, have them sorted and cut, and offer them as a matched set to 3 jewellers who make affordable pieces. The proof is a price per carat and an order.
- Who pays first
- A jeweller who makes affordable coloured-stone pieces and wants a named island range at a price below the sapphire.
- What leaves today
- The lesser stones are mined anyway and thrown into parcels at low prices, so value the island has already dug up leaves unnamed.
Ask first
- National Gem and Jewellery Authority. Ask how garnet, spinel and other stones are described correctly on a certificate.
- Sri Lanka Export Development Board. Ask which buyers abroad have asked for coloured stones beyond sapphire.
Check before you spend
Whether each stone in the range has a correct name and treatment disclosure, and whether a laboratory report is needed for the larger ones.
Find out these three numbers
- What do dealers sell lesser stones for when parcels are split?
- What does cutting and setting one spinel cost?
- Which jewellers abroad would stock a range of island stones?
A comparison from the book
Thailand. Chapter Two
"Thailand does not mine enough gemstones of its own."
Thailand sells stones it never mined; the stones mined here deserve the same selling.
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.