B D, thanks very much for your good advice!
One reason for considering getting into the gems business was because there is not a lot to do in Naypyidaw, apart from counting the traffic jams, (which takes about 0.1 seconds).
There are naughty nightlife (secret) venues, but I have to be a little careful because I’m a primary school teacher, and I don’t want to be caught with ‘my pants down’, so to speak (the school boss would not appreciate this).
So I have time and some modest money on my hands.
I wasn’t yet aware that trading in gemstones was on the prohibited list in Thailand. So is real-estate dealing, but may foreigners do this. I guess the idea is to enter the country with my gems suitably fashioned into a temporary personal necklace.
The idea of buying roughs and faceting them myself is intriging. I had always assumed that to cut a rough requires decades of experience and highly expensive equipment. I’m sure that to cut a rough ‘well’ does take a lot of experience. But I also recognise that buying roughs, faceting them and then selling them would be the best way to maximise the profit.
Now that Myanmar is off the sanctions list, accessing both Ebay and Paypal is possible. So it would be relatively simple to sell direct from Myanmar on Ebay. (Paypal cannot link to a Myanmar bank account, but I already have Paypal accounts linked to my Thai bank accounts).
I need to look further into this process….
As to creating a provenance, you’re reading me like a book! My plan was to locate and establish a good relationship with some smaller, family mines, then record and photo the whole process from buying the rough or gems, through cutting/polishing etc and then the final item.
Since Amber seems much easier to cut/polish etc, perhaps this is where I need to investigate first.
It would certainly benefit me to re-learn Myanmar-sa (Burmese). I did learn conversational Myanmar-sa in 2012, as well as reading and writing the language to a basic level. (I needed this language skill to teach the youngest of students).
That knowledge is still located in one of my brain compartments, but I seem to have misplaced the key… 🙂
I think I need some one-to-one Myanmar-sa lessons from some of the pretty young local teachers at my school in Naypyidaw.
Please tell me more about Amber – I’m interested. (I recall the recent news about the Chinese amber dealer who found the tail of a miniature dinosaur encase in amber at a market in northern Myanmar).