Thailand Gemstone Market:
Many people visiting Thailand buy their gemstones in Bangkok. There is a very large gemstone market in Bangkok with most of it centered around Silom Road in central Bangkok.
But very few people have the opportunity to see where many of the Thai gem dealers buy their gems. For this you need to travel 250 kilometers southeast of Bangkok to Chanthaburi. This small city of about 150,000 people is the largest processing and trading center for colored gemstones in Southeast Asia.
It is estimated that 80% of the world's supply of ruby and sapphire passes through Chanthaburi (in recent years, a large part of the world's supply of eg tourmalines, topazes, amethyst, citrine and more has also passed through Chanthaburi).
Chanthaburi was once famous for its ruby and sapphire mines. This mining industry reached its peak in the 1960s and 70s when political events in Burma reduced the supply of Burmese rubies to almost nothing. The demand for Thai precious stones was so great that a large part of the mines were practically exhausted in the early 1980s.
The gemstone business in Chanthaburi could have died with the mining, but the gemstone factories here had developed new methods of heating/treating gemstones to improve their color and clarity. As the local supply of rubies and sapphires began to dwindle, traders began to take colored gems from around the world and process them in Chanthaburi.
Gemstone processing in Chanthaburi is largely a small-scale industry. Although there are a few large companies, most of the work is done through smaller family businesses. Their expertise is in the treatment, grading, cutting and polishing of gemstones, not marketing their products to the world. So a local market has developed to help the Chanthaburi factories get their gems distributed. For those in the trade, this market has some of the best colored gemstone offerings in the world.
Chanthaburi gem market, known in Thailand as Talad ploy, is open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from about 11 in the morning until about 6 in the evening. This area is full of gem shops and gem equipment (scales, loupes, and the like). But the weekend gem market is a world unto itself. The market is a public market where anyone can buy and sell. But if you are visiting the market for the first time, you probably don't know where to start. This is not a market where sellers display their goods and buyers browse the goods. The commercial model here is completely different from the local produce market a few blocks away. At Talad ploy, the buyers sit at the brokerage table and the sellers circulate through the market to look for buyers.
Many people visiting Thailand buy their gemstones in Bangkok. There is a very large gemstone market in Bangkok with most of it centered around Silom Road in central Bangkok.
But very few people have the opportunity to see where many of the Thai gem dealers buy their gems. For this you need to travel 250 kilometers southeast of Bangkok to Chanthaburi. This small city of about 150,000 people is the largest processing and trading center for colored gemstones in Southeast Asia.
It is estimated that 80% of the world's supply of ruby and sapphire passes through Chanthaburi (in recent years, a large part of the world's supply of eg tourmalines, topazes, amethyst, citrine and more has also passed through Chanthaburi).
Chanthaburi was once famous for its ruby and sapphire mines. This mining industry reached its peak in the 1960s and 70s when political events in Burma reduced the supply of Burmese rubies to almost nothing. The demand for Thai precious stones was so great that a large part of the mines were practically exhausted in the early 1980s.
The gemstone business in Chanthaburi could have died with the mining, but the gemstone factories here had developed new methods of heating/treating gemstones to improve their color and clarity. As the local supply of rubies and sapphires began to dwindle, traders began to take colored gems from around the world and process them in Chanthaburi.
Gemstone processing in Chanthaburi is largely a small-scale industry. Although there are a few large companies, most of the work is done through smaller family businesses. Their expertise is in the treatment, grading, cutting and polishing of gemstones, not marketing their products to the world. So a local market has developed to help the Chanthaburi factories get their gems distributed. For those in the trade, this market has some of the best colored gemstone offerings in the world.
Chanthaburi gem market, known in Thailand as Talad ploy, is open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from about 11 in the morning until about 6 in the evening. This area is full of gem shops and gem equipment (scales, loupes, and the like). But the weekend gem market is a world unto itself. The market is a public market where anyone can buy and sell. But if you are visiting the market for the first time, you probably don't know where to start. This is not a market where sellers display their goods and buyers browse the goods. The commercial model here is completely different from the local produce market a few blocks away. At Talad ploy, the buyers sit at the brokerage table and the sellers circulate through the market to look for buyers.