Starter Kit. Idea 29 of 500. Cluster 2
Jewellery-making classes
The mechanism, from the book
The craft cannot be copied and the object can. In Europe people queue to watch glass being blown and then buy the glass.
The first step
Book a bench for an afternoon at a small jewellery workshop and run one trial class in which each guest shapes a simple silver ring or pendant. Charge friends visiting from abroad a real price, then ask whether they would have booked it on holiday. Their answers, and one guesthouse agreeing to list the class, are the proof.
- Who pays first
- Couples and friends on holiday who want to make a piece of jewellery together, often as an engagement or anniversary keepsake.
- What leaves today
- Stones and silver leave as material; a class sells the goldsmith's skill and the story of the piece, which is where the price sits.
Ask first
- National Gem and Jewellery Authority. Ask whether teaching jewellery making with real stones and metal needs a licence.
- National Crafts Council. Ask whether they know jewellers willing to teach visitors.
Check before you spend
Whether selling metal and stones to students needs a licence, how precious metal is accounted for, and what insurance covers tools and burns.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a visitor pay to make and keep one silver ring?
- What do metal, stones and tools cost per student?
- How long does one simple piece take to finish?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka House. Chapter Seventeen
"You are selling the thing that cannot be copied"
The skill is the thing that cannot be copied, and the piece comes with it.
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.