How would you rank birth stone values? Which ones are more valuable than others?

[Jaded Gem]

I was trying to surf online and find which gemstones were worth more than others. I can''t find one. I would imagine that diamonds are the most valuable. What about sapphires and rubies and the like. Could anybody produce a ranking? How about hearing from the colored gemstone nut? Thanks for all input.

 

[strmrdr]

Top ruby can be more expensive per carat than white diamonds but some natural colored diamonds are the most expensive.

Natural red diamonds are the most expensive if I remember right.

A google search turned up this red diamond and it isnt top red either:
0.44ct Round Brilliant Purplish Red GIA Natural $149,108

same source pink price:
0.51ct Round Very Light Pink SI1 $1828
1.00 Round Light Pink SI1 $7,168

blues:
1.00 Round Peacock Blue SI2 $4,650

the bluee at that price is enhanced not a natural blue.

 

[strmrdr]

natural blue price:
1.04 Round Brilliant Fancy Deep Blue GIA $162,500.00

another pink:
0.89 Oval Fancy Intense Pink GIA $80,000.00

 

[valeria101]

That's a hard Q. It is feasible (not easy) to rank, say, the prices for top quality stones in each category. Beyond this, the whole stroy gets murky because quality grades are involved and there is no uniform quality grading system applicable to different types of gems. Each person would have some feeling of what is the ranking of his preferred grades for each type of gem (if one makes a serious hobby out of it, I suppose)... or whatever. But this woudl be a long chat, best done on specific examples.

Ranking prices for TOP quality gems (meaning highest priced per carat, in 'wearable size' so, loosely, below 10 cts in all cases), the order would be: ruby, colorless diamonds, emerald, blue sapphire, and 'the rest'.

The highest prices per carat in relatively small (as mentioned above) were recorded for rare colored diamonds (as jokingly noted above on this thread). Yellow diamonds are sold near the colorless price range.

I am sorry, but even this approximative 'order' needs allot of disclaimers: prices per carat vary with the size of the gems in all categories. At certain weights (different for each gem type) these prices "jump" due to rarity. Also there are 'prefered sizes" for each type (so 1ct stones are usual choices for ruby and diamond, but rather unusually small for sapphire) AND SO ON

.

At this point, I am almost sure you were not asking for such philosophical debate.

A general consensus on value says that you have the BIG FOUR (ruby, emerald, sapphire, diamond) and the rest. This reflects prices very well.

There is not much consensus on what the birthstones are!

Here's a list

(WWW).

 

[pyramid]

I used to have a children's book, I think a Ladybird book if you get them in the USA. It said the the top stones were Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond and Pearl. This is the only time I have heard Pearl mentioned. Does anyone know if it is considered Precious as opposed to Semi Precious? I take it this would only be natural pearl also and not cultured. Pearl is the birthstone for June although I have heard that the actual birthstone for June is Alexandrite but because of its rarity it is now listed as Pearl.

 

[valeria101]

I am not sure how useful ort usual is the "precious vs. semiprecious" distinction. Not a very important point, I guess.

Pearls, spinel, alexandrite are sometimes in and sometimes out of the "top tier". Prices for natural pearls sugest 'preciousnes" all the way, so is their history. But what are the chances that you get to inspect a good sample of such items to discern quality factors? Natural emerald and pearls might have become just a tad too rare for their own good. These two have their own market - so allof that I suspect that the already rarefied circles talking "precious vs. semi precious" for collecting do not pay much lip service to these out-of-reach, barely there greats.

You may more often hear about "new comers" to the top tier. Tsavorite and Tanzanite are presented in jewelry among 'top four' items. Demantoid had it's hayday before the lapse in production from Russia - now how many would consider this garnet on par with emeralds and rubies? Now the green sparkes are back

demanding full gem status. However, it takes larger gems for these materials to reach high values, this is why there is the rather arbitrary 10 carat mark in my previous post: so that exceptional, large specimens of other-than-the-four don't make it past! Not my original idea, sure that. Just one more gimmick to base gem value on something else than color, refraction index and hardness.

I am affraid this thread would never end if I have it my way

 

[Jaded Gem]

Thanks for all the useful information guys and gals. I was just looking online, and I am an early planner. I was hoping to get an eternity ring for mother's day for my momsie. She's not into what birth stones match up with her birthday so she has a c'est la vie attitude. I think she trusts my judgement since I do have a quirky artsy look at things at times. I saw one pink sapphire and another red ruby eternity ring that was really nice. And I didn't know if these were top colored gem stones since I am no expert. I tried to do some surfing online and read a few books on the subject but there were no type of colored gemstone ranking out there so I thought someone on the Pricescope forum might have an idea. It looks as if there are a lot of different qualities and that there could be a serious discussion on some. I was also amused to know that sapphires and rubies (don't quote, I don't remember) can come in differnt colors which is interesting. I guess I don't know. Please continue to contribute to this thread. I do enjoy reading the different opinions on this subject. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

[valeria101]

That's a good start... It takes a couple of books and ... how does one stop this kind of (hopefully harmless) addiction? Birtstones mean precious little to me (although my favorite happens to be the one, but I found out much later about the funny match).

There is a way to put lots of different stones into one ring. This used to be common way back, but the idea is definitely not gone. It's fun to write with gems

I would think. Ever heard of a "Birthstones Ring"? Take a look (WWW). The model comes from THIS page and, of course, one can choose whatever gems for whichever message. More often, the initial letter of the gems' names form a name or a word with special meaning. One can find Victorian rings like this, but I have no idea when the custom really started.

If you want one piece of every gem material in one ring: this is a pretty good receipe

Oh.... and about gem-sites and gem-books. I surely have some online favorites: Ruby-Sapphire.com and Secrets of the gem trade (the nice ones)

Both very nice, up to date, not boringly technical reading. Oh... and the pages on gem types at Palagems are a treat. Enough to get into the matter

and never leave.

 

[valeria101]

As for Sapphire colors.... oh, how I'd love to forget this part and learn it again!

Here's a LONG sample

 

[Jaded Gem]

Thanks Valerie101. That rainbow sapphire bracelet was really beautiful. I wouldn't mind sporting that. So I guess there's really no way to rank those stones. What do you think about red rubies and pink sapphires? As an eternity band, does one have more value over the other? Which would you prefer? An eternity band with red rubies alternating with diamonds or an all pink sapphire eternity ring? The price difference is about a $200 difference between the red rubies and diamonds combo which is more than the pink sapphire ring. But the pink sapphire ring has more carat weight. What are your thoughts? Vote?

 

[valeria101]

----------------
On 3/31/2004 2:05:16 PM Jaded Gem wrote:

Which would you prefer? ... What are your thoughts? Vote?

----------------

Online? Pics?

Actually, whichever. All I want is high grade material in them: white diamonds, red rubies, hot pink sapphires, clean, nicely cut and matched.

From this point onwards, either would be quite nice

 

[Jaded Gem]

They both looked very nice to me. The store has a 30 day return policy so I was hoping to give it to my mom early, and I would have her pick out the one that she liked the most. Because of the store's policy I could return the other one or whatever if it didn't work out. Maybe we will decide to keep them both. They are beautiful.

 

[Jaded Gem]

http://www.signedpieces.com/item.php?type=brand&cat=55&ItemID=2566#
The only exception is that I purchased almost the exact ring yesterday with a few minor details. It is a brand new platinum eternity band with 17 diamonds and 17 rubies. The diamond have a total weight of .40ct and are F-G clor, VVS-VS clarity. The rubies have a total weight of 0.51ct and are round diamond cut. The ring is a size 6.25, and is 2.5mm wide and weights 2.4 grams. It will cost around $500 sale price. Is this any good. I will try to find a picture of the other one.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=43000&item=2690792726
The only exception is that it is a 18K yellow gold eternity band with 28 pink sapphires. The sapphires are 1.40ct total weight and they are quoted "as very fine quality stones" from the seller. The ring is a size 6, and it weights 3.9 grams. The ring is 3.3mm wide and 2mm thick. It will cost around $300 sale price.

So what are your thoughts?

 

[strmrdr]

pink is one of my least favorite colors so id go for the ruby/diamond.

The thing to look for in rubies is that they are actualy red.
If they are pink or purple under normal lighting then they arent rubies.
Some disagree with that but in my opinion thats the way it should be.
Under real bright light they might show a little pink and thats ok.
But even under fairly bright sunlight it should flash bright red.

Under low light they should either take on a deep red or slightly purple.
All the rubies iv seen tend to vary alot by lighting as long as they are a nice to darkish red under normal lighting then they are top class to me.
Black patches add charactor to the stones and are very common in natural stones as seen in the picture.
As long as they dont cover to much of the stone its kewl.
http://www.signedpieces.com/item.php?type=brand&cat=55&ItemID=2566#
Those look good on my monitor and you can see how the light affects the color.

A stone that is allready at one extreme or the other under normal lighting is a purple sapphire or a pink sapphire and isnt worthy of the ruby price premium.

That is just my opinion val will disagree :}

Now else to look for:
check that they are fairly well matched no 2 natural stones will be exackly alike so dont be too picky but they should be close.

Clarity - Id accept small inlusions if they are hard to find but in these small sizes eyeclean ones are common.
If everything else is ok its acceptable to me for them to not be 100% eyeclean.

 

[Patty]

Jaded, of those two rings, I prefer the ruby/diamond one. The all pink one doesn't do anything for me.

 

[pyramid]

I always think of rubies as being higher ranking than pink sapphires, perhaps because I did not hear much about coloured sapphires until within the last few years. Normally, one would see Blue Sapphires and I have heard that a true cornflower blue colour is the most valued or a Kashmiri Sapphire.

It is all about the quality and colour of the stone. All of the big name stones have very cheap versions which although of that mineral is wrong in colour, hue, saturation, tone etc. Also strmrdr said that a good quality ruby will be red not purple but cheaper versions are often pink or purple. The top coloured stones of both ruby and sapphire will cost thousands of dollars so I think it is a case of getting it into perspective. As valeria101 replied to my earlier post about pearl to say the natural pearls and natural emeralds (not oiled) are very rare and to take it further I saw something the other day on a site which said a 'gem' is a term which should only describe a perfect stone with no inclusions, perfect colour etc. A diamond would need to be a D colour, Flawless to be described as a 'gem' it said. Basically unless we are royalty then or multi-millionaires we are always compromising to try to get a nice stone as near to a gem as possible.

As far as buying a stone which is most valuable it depends how costly it is, if I was buying a stone which was say 0.005% the value of a top grade ruby then my stone would not really be a likeness to the real thing except that it has the same mineral name and looks like the basic colour. In that case I think we should just choose the stone which looks best or biggest to our naked eye be it ruby or pink sapphire. However, the way jewellery is marketed and we admire it from when we are very young (for girls anyway) we tend to have psychological thoughts that it is a real ruby or real diamond and so do most people around us. So if someone said to me they had got a new ruby ring or a new pink sapphire ring, I would automatically think the ruby was the more expensive although it may not be.

If it was a very expensive stone I would let an appraiser tell me or I would buy a coloured stone with a GIA certificate but for an average stone I would just buy whichever I liked best be it psychological or not.

I think your idea above to let your mommie choose may be the best then she would get what she thought had most value to her.

 

[Jaded Gem]

Do you think the prices fall in line with the rings? Would you say that it is a good deal, average deal, or not worth the price? Both rings were "sale" price so I am guessing that both are good deals. Your thoughts on this please.

 

[strmrdr]

pricing so much depends on the qualituy of the diamonds and the rubies and the alloy used in the ring and the weight of all 3.
If its 950 plat and the stones are decent quality its a good price in my opinion but im not an expert in prices on these types of rings.

 

[Debutante]

It's my impression that what you really want is the best value, am I right? Even if diamonds are the "most valuable" gram for gram, that's not useful if the purchase price far exceeds the resale value. Diamonds have very, very, VERY poor resale value.

If you want good value relative to what you pay for it, look at precious metals, pearls, rubies, saphires and um, what's the green one called?

The greatest value might actually lie in the artisanship of the band and setting itself.

???

 

[Jaded Gem]

Hey Debutante!

Green one...did you mean emerald? Thanks for your advice. I got one eternity band from the company and the craftmanship to me seems pretty decent to good. That's why I'm working on those additional purchases. Thanks for your advice, though.

 

[strmrdr]

Debutante,
You have 3 posts and all 3 are raving about poor resale value.
We are well aware of this and that diamonds arent a good investment.
Neither are the other things you mentioned other than gold or silver bullion bought at near spot.

Last time you were told that this is neither the time nor the place for your rantings.
Knock it off please.

 

[aljdewey]

Storm.......I think your reply was *way* too harsh for the comments posted. What's your beef?

 

[strmrdr]

al see pm.