colored stones drying up?

[partgypsy]

Did anyone else get this email from AJS gems? If so, I was wondering if people could share their thoughts on this.
Are nice colored stones are becoming scarcer? If so, when should we expect prices to go up, and for what stones?

Partgypsy


"This is the first ever news letter I''ve tried to write and since it took me 5 years to get around to it , I hope you don''t find
it a bother in your in box.
It''s just coming to the end of our rainy season here in Bangkok, I hope, it seems that this year we''ve gotten more than
our share of rain. But as I watched, the seemingly endless comings and goings of hurricanes, typhoons and tropical
cyclones world wide, to say nothing of the earth quakes, I guess that a couple of hours of rain everyday for
5 months or so is not so bad after all.

The gem market in the past year has really gotten tough, changing from a buyers to a sellers market.
It seems that we had been very lucky in the past 10 years, with an over abundance of gemstones on the market.
What with the new finds of fine Burmese rubies, from Mong Hsu and then every color of sapphire being found, first in Tunduru Tanzania and then from Madagascar as well as some very nice alexandrite, spinel and a variety of other rare gemstones. New finds seemed to be an almost monthly event, in Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Madagascar and some lesser know regions in Africa, this lead to what seemed to be a seemlingless endless supply of fine quality gemstones....
This good fortune has now all come to a screeching halt, with the new gemstone finds drying up and all the easy stones to find, having already been taken out of the ground. The market is experiencing a surge of new and recycled buyers, this includes the new markets in China and the Japanese all over again, as there market seems to be recovering quite well.
The result has been a dramatic increase in the price of rough and ultimately cut gemstones. Of course in the world of high priced real estate and oil, it almost seems normal. The truth is gemstones have been very cheap for years, and now
with a short supply and growing demand, there is little doubt that the direction has but one way to go, UP....."

 

[bettyann]

One of the reasons colored stones are so much more seductive that diamonds is that the nice ones are always becoming more scarce.

You can always replace a white diamond, but many fine colored stones are unique in color and cut.

Sources do dry up.

Paraiba tourmaline is a great example.

 

[spinel]

I do agree with Arnold''s remark on the chinese market particularly for semi-precious gemstones. The HongKong chineses come to our country and are very agressive on buying, they are ready to pay $700 for a kilogram of white topaz rough, 10gram+ when on the world market the price is $500. This material was sold for $50 two year ago!

The next and obvious material I saw the surge in price is red spinel. Fine red stones over 3 carats size are asked now for $2,000-3,000 a carat even in Bangkok. One red spinel rough of 22 carats - could be cut for a 10-carat oval stone - was sold at the mine for $22,000. I could obtain that rough for $4,000 before. My life at the mine is becoming more and more difficult...

Good luck ANYWAY

 

[strmrdr]

more poeple are being priced out of diamonds so are buying gemstones instead.
There are plenty of comercial grade stones around from what I see looking around the net.
On the top end things look a little different.
Just an observation from the peanut gallary :}

 

[movie zombie]

interesting comment, storm.

peace, movie zombie

 

[partgypsy]

I guess you''re right; compared to diamonds most colored stones are affordable, but the highest quality of any kind will still be expensive. However to me I would be happy wearing a 1/3 carat diamond pendant, but for a colored stone want something at least a carat in size.

On my wish list is a tsavorite. Right now they are hovering around $500 for a carat size. That seems like alot to me but wonder if I will end up being priced out of it''s range when I do have the money for it.

 

[bar01]

Let me speak to sapphires and diamonds – since that is the area I know as a consumer.

Relatively speaking, sapphires are still a huge bargain. Even rare, fine, untreated blue sapphires (origin unspecified) are going for a fraction of commonly available ideal cut diamonds.

As far as I can tell, availability and rarity don’t seem to be affecting sapphire values as they should. But then again – that DeBeers and market/mind control for you.