A small house, on a small street, in the city where gems are washed from rivers.

Nilvara was founded to do a plain thing well: sell honest Ceylon gemstones to people who care about where their stones come from. We are a family house. We buy at the pit, we cut in Ratnapura, we send every important stone to a Swiss or American laboratory.

We do not run auctions. We do not build hype. Instead, we photograph each stone honestly, we tell you what we paid attention to, and we make ourselves available for questions — by email, by WhatsApp, in person if you happen to be passing through.

The name Nilvara is Sinhala for "sapphire blue" — nil for blue, vara for the choicest. It is what we hope every stone in our cabinet lives up to, regardless of colour.

"The gem is old. What we add is care."