Importing Gemstone from India in the UK via Etsy, rules, regulations & custom charges

[themaker]

The only thing that worries me about buying from sellers who are offering cheap stones is how ethical their practices are towards the enviroment and their staff. I'd like to buy direct from artisanal mines less good quality stones (therefor cheaper) but most fairtrade and ethical projects seem to mainly deal in your high end stones .

I think you make a very valid point. A few suppliers I spoke to from Etsy are small family run businesses they don’t have massive mines etc. They mainly work with their families and the business is passed down from generation to generation.

There’re various reasons why they can sell it so cheap not necessarily you have to compromise with the quality. Like you said most fair trade and ethical projects deal with high end stones so for someone like me it’ll be challenging to start with but with time and a bit of research I’m hoping will figure good ethical supplier in the long run.

[themaker]

A really rubbish sapphire is still a precious stone.

I’ve worked for many years in tech/marketing and currently work for interior design company, we import and export many furniture components from various different countries but when it comes to gemstone and precious metals etc I don’t have much experience so please forgive me if my question is a bit daft.

How do you market precious stones, is there any rules regulations in the UK what you can and what you can’t say when marketing a precious stone of lower grade or higher grade?

So if I buy emerald for example I’ll just go based on purely how it looks and what the supplier says, can I then describe it as emerald and sell it or do I need to find out the grade etc. if I’m honest I wouldn’t know the purity myself unless I take it to certify gemologist.

I noticed some people just describe them as A, AA, AAA quality etc