Throughout history, people have held gemstones in great esteem for their beauty, rarity, and age-old mystical and symbolic meanings. Traditionally, gems and stones have not only graced the tables of beauty and luxury but have also served in much-talked-about good-transforming capacities. What makes them so extraordinarily exceptional and supremely priced? What makes them hold so much value in the private and public imaginations? Various factors contribute to and determine a gemstone’s high cost.
Natural Formation and Rarity
Natural formation and rarity influence this pricing in a significant way, and for understandable reasons: The most luminous specimens result from natural forces that unfathomably shape and compass their extraordinary beauty and worth.
Take, for example, diamonds. They are formed under conditions of extreme temperature and pressure deep in the Earth’s mantle. Yet other gems, such as emeralds and sapphires, take shape in a completely different environment—either schists and slates, which are layered and metamorphic rocks, or igneous and volcanic rock, which are formed in a very different way. These are conditions not found everywhere, and the processes by which various gemstones form take such a long time that they have been measured in millennia. It is claimed that sapphires take longer to form than rubies, which, if true, would make sapphires rarer and hence more valuable than rubies.
Take, for instance, the exceptional emeralds that emerge from Colombia. They, like the finest rubies found in Myanmar, are the cream of the crop. Unfortunately for gemstone enthusiasts, the supply of such high-quality stones is vanishingly small. Scarcity, of course, drives up prices. But it is not just scarcity that makes such stones so valuable; it is their glorious colour as well. When it comes to colour, a vibrant blue that more than half of the viewers would say is the best stone they have ever seen lies just above pale, limp, and watery in terms of value.
Gemstones are not only rare and beautiful but also carry significant value, making it essential to protect them properly. Alongside safeguarding valuable items, ensuring fire protection for your assets is equally important. If you’re curious about it, exploring fire safes can provide reliable options to keep your precious belongings safe from potential damage.
Quality and Grading
Gemstones with fewer inclusions, or none at all, are more valuable. Inclusions are considered imperfections and can adversely affect a stone’s brilliance. Transparency is, of course, greatly prized, with clarity the most fundamental quality of a gemstone. With more light and less obstruction, a gem has more “face-up” tendency, and obstructions just make a stone appear more “dirty.” With a well-cut stone, light serves as a “battery” for an apparently living gem, and you can see a refraction of colour sharp to the eye. When you up a stone’s truthfulness in appearance, you’ve increased its “value” without adding to its secrets, or vanity.
Carat size measures a gemstone’s weight; one carat is 200 milligrams. Gemstone rarity increases with size. Prices for individual gemstones rise sharply as they gain heft, a fact that few but gem dealers and jewellers fully appreciate. Even small gems can be quite valuable when set in a piece of jewellery. But one enormous rock can trump many smaller stones. And when it comes to mining, a single large gemstone is more likely to cover costs than an array of small ones.
Mining and Extraction
Whether a gemstone is removed from the earth in one piece or several, the labour conditions faced by the miners—underground and above—are often appalling. It is vital to minimise the environmental effect of mining. Mining is not green, and making it “green” incurs costs. Those costs, particularly when disguised as social costs or reallocated to effect sustainability, are often borne by the local communities affected by the mining operations. The figure of excellence that we must also seek in this case is what has already been achieved, not what could be achieved in a hypothetical world in which neither costs nor social effects are borne by anyone.
Processing and Cutting
The process of cutting gems requires precise algebraic calculations and careful follow-through. It is not a rapid process, nor is it an inexpensive one, mostly because the tools and techniques of gem cutting (varying slightly according to the type of gem being processed) closely resemble those of high-precision machining. The gem cutter’s tools and equipment need to be of very high quality if the cutter is to achieve the “optical and physical illusion” promised by a brilliant cut and, thus, the somewhat musky glow common to many gemstones. For a closer look at some of the world’s most expensive gemstones, explore this article.
Certification and Appraisal
Acquiring these certifications demands stringent testing and evaluation, which can be cost-prohibitive. The value of a gemstone is determined by professional appraisers using a multitude of factors—all of which they assess with the utmost level of professional acumen. Principal among these many factors are colour, clarity, and cut. They also consider, of course, carat weight.
Market Demand and Investment
The luxury market’s strong demand can really boost prices, particularly for high-quality and rare stones. Many people consider gemstones to be an investment akin to gold or real estate. Their potential to appreciate over time makes them even more alluring to possible investors. The carat prices of the world’s most expensive gemstones tend to rise much faster than inflation as the prices for gold have recently surged. Meanwhile, the prices of real estate in many coastal cities—and the range of strategies investors use to extract value from it—have become infamous. Yet few realise that in today’s market, under the right conditions, the range of prices gemstones command can also make them a vehicle for very leverageable investment.
Conclusion
Not only are these jewels stunning, but they also embody substantial investments of time, energy, and know-how. When we consider what goes into a gemstone, we can better grasp why these treasures are worth so much. Their price tags reflect something besides mere beauty; they intimate a long and mostly hidden adventure from deep within the Earth to that hardly accessible place where the few select stones are displayed. Explore more at Caldera Gems.
