Wondering About Lab Grown Gemstone Pricing

[catsareawesome]

Hi I am new here and have been searching online for help in pricing. This forum seems to be the only place that I think I can reasonably get help.

Not long ago I joined some bidding site called tophatter and it was selling these "lab created" stuff at steep discounts and I bought some rings, necklaces, and have some bracelets coming my way.

But here's the problem - I honestly don't know how much these pieces of jewellery are worth. I see stuff listed saying this ring's retail value is $500 or that bracelet's value is $1000 and here we are bidding starting 2 bucks starts - I just can't see lab-grown gemstones costing so much in a store. Maybe someone can help me out or point me out where to look in researching the real price value (just apprpximately, like a general price range) I've heard that you can buy those kinds of things for only $30-$40 or something like that.

I'm going to stop going to the bidding site until I'm better informed. I also make jewellery myself (much to the delight of my daughter!!!) so it's also an area of interest to me, good hobby and conversation-starter LOL

 

[ChristineRose]

Tophatter is selling you fraudulently mislabeled cubic zirconias. The part about retail price is pointless--the retail price is $2. A fair price for a CZ is anywhere from a few cents to about $100, and I can promise you that these are not the $100 ones. If someone can't tell a CZ from a diamond, they can't tell a nice CZ from a bubblegum machine CZ either.

As for actual lab diamonds, they are very hard to compare in price to mined diamonds because AGS and GIA will not grade them. Here on PS we recommend only AGS and GIA except in very special cases. However they seem to be about 70% of the price of mined diamonds right now.

Most lab stones are sold to people who specifically do not want a mined stones for whatever reason. The mythical drop in price that has been predicted for oh, forty years, has not happened and most of start up growers have gone bankrupt.

The best thing I can say about these crooks is that the "retail price" scam is pretty common with mined stones as well. There is an extra twist, which is that you found it plausible that a mined stone might sell for somewhere north of $2 but under $500.

If you want to see actual retail prices, the overwhelming majority of diamonds are right here. Yes, that's less than 8,000 stones, and it's still the majority offered for sale in the whole wide world.

https://www.brilliantearth.com/lab-diamonds-search/

 

[catsareawesome]

Ok thank you. Yes what you are saying is logical. This is all very new to me and although I did get some really pretty pieces of jewellery I am going to move on to the real stuff.

 

[ChristineRose]

Your very welcome!

It's a shame there are some many deceptive people out there, but simulants can be lovely and very hard to tell from real diamonds. I hope you enjoy any real diamonds you do purchase, and the folks on the diamond forums will be delighted to help you.

Christine Rose