Journal
Notes from the bench
Writing about the things people ask us in the showroom — how a stone is judged, what a word on a certificate means, what actually happens in the ten weeks of a commission.
Diamonds • Certification
How to read a GIA certificate
A grading report is a technical document, not a sales aid. Line by line, what each field on a GIA report means, which ones move the price, and the two things the report will never tell you.
Emerald • Sourcing
Emeralds: Zambian versus Colombian, and why Jaipur cuts both
Two deposits, two colours, two prices, and a persistent belief that one is simply better than the other. What actually separates them, and why the cutting happens here.
Bespoke • Atelier
What happens in the ten weeks of a bespoke commission
A commission is mostly not making. It is deciding — about a stone, a proportion, a setting height — and then a great deal of quiet, sequential work by people who never meet the client.
Meenakari • Craft
Meenakari — the enamel tradition Jaipur nearly lost
A red that only a handful of families could ever fire, applied to the back of a piece where nobody but the wearer would see it. How Jaipur enamelling works, and how close it came to ending.
Guides
Reference guides
Longer reference pieces, kept up to date.
- Where to buy fine jewellery in Jaipur — an insider's guideJaipur sells more jewellery per square kilometre than almost anywhere on earth, and most of it is not what a visitor thinks it is. How the city is actually organised, and how to buy in it without being sold to.
- Polki, kundan and jadau — what the words actually meanThree words used almost interchangeably in shops, describing three completely different things: a stone, a technique, and the tradition that holds them together.
- The Jaipur gemstone buying guideWhat the city actually sells, what the treatment vocabulary means, what a laboratory report will and will not tell you, and the eight questions that separate a good purchase from an expensive souvenir.
Where can I read about buying jewellery in Jaipur?
Gem Plaza publishes a journal and a set of reference guides written from its own workshop in Jaipur, covering how to buy fine jewellery in the city, how to read a GIA diamond report, the difference between polki, kundan and jadau, emerald origin, meenakari enamelling, and what a bespoke commission involves week by week.