Jaipur has been cutting and setting stones since the eighteenth century, and it still does more of it than any other city in the world. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of the world's coloured gemstones pass through here to be cut. That is the reason to buy jewellery in Jaipur. It is also the reason buying jewellery in Jaipur is confusing: a trade this large has room for every kind of seller, from a house with a hundred and fifty people at the bench to a shop that exists entirely to sell tourists a topaz described as something else.
This is a guide to the difference.
The city has three jewellery districts, and they do different things
Johari Bazaar and the lanes behind it — Gopalji ka Rasta, Haldiyon ka Rasta — are the traditional retail and wholesale trade. This is where Jaipur's own families buy for weddings. It is dense, it is loud, it runs on relationships that are decades old, and it is not built for a first-time visitor. There is extraordinary material here. There is also a great deal of ordinary material sold at extraordinary prices to people who cannot tell the difference.
M.I. Road is where the established houses have their showrooms. This is the part of the city built for the buyer who wants to sit down, be shown a small number of things properly, and take an hour over it. It is quieter and slower, which is the point.
Sitapura, eleven kilometres south, is where the jewellery is actually made. The Gem and Jewellery Zone at EPIP is an industrial estate full of workshops, and almost none of them have a shop front. If a house tells you it manufactures, this is where its factory is, and if it is a real claim it will invite you there.
Most visitors only ever see the first of these. The buyers who go home happiest have usually seen at least two.
What Jaipur is actually cheap for
There is a persistent belief that everything is cheaper in Jaipur. Half of that is true and the half that is true is the important half.
Labour is cheaper. The work of cutting, setting, enamelling and finishing is done here by people who have done it for twenty or thirty years, and it costs a fraction of what the same hours cost in Europe. This is real and it is not going to change soon. A hand-set pavé line that would price a piece out of reach in Geneva is simply normal here.
Stones are not cheaper, in the way people mean. A fine Colombian emerald is priced by a global market and Jaipur pays that market price like everyone else. What Jaipur has is access — depth of inventory, more stones to compare, and cutters who can recut something that has been badly handled. You will see more good stones in a week here than in a year in most cities. That is worth more than a discount.
So the honest version is: come to Jaipur for the making, and for the choice. Do not come expecting a fine ruby at half price, because the person offering you one is not selling you a fine ruby.
The single question that sorts the trade
Ask: do you make what you sell, and can I see where?
It is a short question and it does most of the work. A retailer who buys finished stock from a manufacturer is a perfectly legitimate business, but they cannot answer for how a piece was made, they cannot change it, and they cannot tell you which bench it came off. A house with its own workshop can do all three, and will usually offer before you ask.
We are one of the houses with a workshop, so treat that as an interested opinion — but check it the same way you would check anyone's. Ask to see the floor. Ask who set the stone. Ask what happens if a claw wears in ten years.
Six things worth doing before you buy anything
- Refuse anything a driver, guide or hotel introduces you to. Commission arrangements are widespread and the commission comes out of your purchase, typically at twenty to forty per cent. This is the largest single cause of tourist complaints in the city and it is entirely avoidable.
- Get the stone's identity and any treatment in writing on the invoice, in plain words. Oiled emerald, heated sapphire, glass-filled ruby, lab-grown diamond: none of these are dishonest in themselves, and all of them are dishonest when they are not disclosed.
- Ask for an independent laboratory report on anything significant — GIA, IGI or a recognised gemmological laboratory. For a stone worth a serious sum, ask before you commit rather than after.
- Have the stone and the making quoted separately. You should be able to see what you are paying for the material and what you are paying for the hours. A seller who will not separate them is telling you something.
- Look at the piece in two lights. Daylight by a window and warm indoor light. Colour changes, and a stone that only performs under a showroom spot is not a stone you will enjoy wearing.
- Ask about export paperwork and duty before you pay. What you owe when you land is your problem, not the seller's, and it is better to know the number in advance.
On "government approved" and similar phrases
There is no government approval scheme for jewellery retailers in India, and a shop displaying a sign to that effect is describing something that does not exist. What does exist and is worth knowing: BIS hallmarking for gold purity, which is a genuine standard with a genuine mark; GST registration, which any legitimate business will have and will print on the invoice; and the Kimberley Process warranty for rough diamonds, which is a trade-level undertaking rather than a certificate about the individual stone in front of you.
Anyone who explains those three honestly, including their limits, is probably worth listening to about other things too.
What a good buying visit looks like
An hour, not ten minutes. A small number of pieces on the table rather than a tray of forty. Someone who asks what you will wear it for before they show you anything. Prices that are the same on the second visit as the first. A willingness to say "that stone is not right for you" out loud.
If you want to see how the making side works, our own Sitapura workshop is a fifteen-minute drive from the M.I. Road showroom and we take people through it on the same appointment. The stones you will see in the Viridis collection were cut and set within that building, and the setters who did it are usually at their benches while visitors are there.
That is the version of Jaipur worth the trip: not a bargain, but a building where you can watch the thing being made and then meet the person who made it.