Selling stones to us

Mining, cutting or dealing at source? This page is written for someone in Australia with a stone or two to sell. If you work at the other end of the chain, start at we buy rough instead — the arrangement is different and, in Sri Lanka, the material never has to leave the country.

What we buy

• Ceylon sapphire in every colour, cut and rough, heated and unheated.
• Spinel — particularly Mahenge and the good greys and reds.
• Alexandrite and chrysoberyl, including cat’s eye material and colour-change stones of any size.
• Zircon, garnet in all its varieties, and taaffeite or any of the genuinely rare species.
• Rough and parcels — working lots, mine-run material and single crystals.

Estate and inherited pieces are welcome. So is material you were sold as one thing and suspect is another — that happens constantly, and we would rather tell you what you actually have than have you find out from someone less inclined to say.

What to send first

1. Photographs in daylight, near a window, against something white. A phone is fine. Several angles beats one perfect shot.
2. Weight in carats, or grams for rough, and the measurements in millimetres if you have them.
3. Any laboratory report, valuation or receipt — even an old one, and even if you doubt it.
4. What you know about where it came from.“My grandmother’s, no idea” is a perfectly useful answer.

From that we will come back with an indicative range, and tell you plainly if it is not something we can use — including when you would do better selling it elsewhere.

How the offer works

An indicative range from photographs is exactly that. A firm offer needs the stone in hand, because weight, colour and clarity all read differently in person and no photograph settles a treatment question.

There is no fee and no obligation at any point — an offer is something to consider, not something you have agreed to by sending photographs. Postage and insurance for a stone coming in for assessment is worked out with you before anything is sent, so you know where you stand before it leaves your hands. Where a stone needs a laboratory report to be valued properly, we will say so and quote it before anything is committed.

What we need from you

Photo identification and proof of your address, before any purchase settles. That is a legal requirement for dealing in second-hand goods, not a formality, and it protects both of us — a clean chain of ownership is exactly what makes a stone saleable afterwards.

Settlement is by bank transfer. We do not deal in cash or cryptocurrency for any transaction, of any size.

What we can’t buy

• Anything we cannot establish clear title to, or where the account of how it was acquired doesn’t hold together.
• Synthetic, lab-grown or composite material.
• Burmese-origin material, on sanctions grounds. This is not a judgement about a particular stone — the entity controlling Burmese gemstone permitting is subject to US and UK sanctions, which taints the material regardless of species.
• Rough diamond, which carries its own export licensing regime.

Start here

Send photographs and weights and we will come back to you.