THE JEWELLERY MARKET TODAY
With the price of gold, diamonds and jewellery continually changing,
seeking professional advice relating to your specific requirement is
extremely important. An item retailing for £100,000 one month could
lose significant value six months later, so knowing what to insure
it for correctly or, possibly even, when to think about selling it, are
becoming increasingly critical issues.
At Pall Mall Art Advisors our
team of jewellery specialists
monitor prices and trends in the
international market to make
sure that you can be properly
informed and looked after.
The jewellery market over
the past few years has been
unusually volatile for several
reasons - some directly due to
the general ‘woes of the world’
and some caused by some
quite dramatic fluctuations
in commodity, material and
gem prices.
In 2007, the price per ounce
of gold was around the $750
mark – it peaked late in 2012 at
$1,890 – and fell back to just
over $1,000 in recent months
although it’s edging up to the
$1,200 mark today.
However, in pieces of gem set
jewellery the gold value factor
is not huge – the gem prices,
manufacturing costs and retail
profits are larger factors.
pallmallartadvisors.com
Diamonds, despite what
De Beers say in their
advertisements, are not rare.
Huge deposits of good quality
stones are regularly being
found in mid-Africa and now
Botswana has pretty well
become the diamond centre
of the world, with De Beers
moving their headquarters
there from London.
However, if the stone is
exceptional in all of the three
main quality criteria i.e. size,
colour and clarity, it will still
be very expensive. The trade
price of a one carat flawless
D colour (the best) stone, is well
over twice the price of a one
carat H colour and VVS2 clarity
(both acceptable commercial
qualities) stone.
Mining techniques are better
and more efficient, so there are
more than enough stones to
go around. Slackening demand
from the Middle and Far East
for many of the slightly lower
grade stones and sizes have
seen noticeable drops in
market prices. De Beers and
their fellow core suppliers have
had to do a lot of juggling and
adjustment to try and keep
things on an even keel.
There have been some
exceptional auction prices
recently for coloured diamonds,
specifically for pink and blue
stones with prices approaching
$1 million dollars per carat.
There is a very rare red diamond
coming up for sale in the Spring,
which could break records
despite being only just over one
carat, i.e. 6.5 mm diameter.
There’s a slight, but increasing,
threat to the stability of the
diamond markets with the
arrival of man-made diamonds.
They have been around for a
few years and are ‘genuine’
stones i.e. made from of carbon,
but have up until now been
a rather unattractive bright
orange/yellow colour and they
were costing more to make than
the price for a natural one.
However, techniques have
improved and costs have
dropped and they are now
producing acceptably ‘white’
stones at commercially
viable prices.
The biggest movement in the
gem market has been the huge
increase in auction prices of
good rubies, sapphires and to a
slightly lesser degree emeralds
– with the big proviso that they
are ‘natural and untreated’
stones and have a laboratory
certificate to prove it. Nearly
all the coloured stone modern
jewellery that you see in shops
today will have stones treated
with heat and highly technical
processes to improve their
colour and clarity and therefore
retail value. So it is important
to ensure you have certificates
and an up to date valuation.
Thailand, Vietnam, Ceylon and
India are the centres for this
stone enhancement. The market
is awash with these stones and
trade prices are very low, plus
with modest manufacturing costs
over there, there is plenty of
scope for retailers to put a pretty
punchy profit mark up on the
pieces. So, it’s the good coloured
stones from the 1920’s and 1930’s,
before this enhancement became
so wide spread, that are the
ones that hit the headlines. A
good colour and clarity natural
ruby can be worth more than
a diamond of comparable size,
but a recognised laboratory
certificate is a must.
There have been two other
‘spikes’ in the market over recent
years, both driven by Middle and
Far Eastern buying. First came
amber, but it has to be a butter
scotch brown/red colour and as
big as possible and unfacetted.
Amber has always been
associated with good fortune
in the Buddhist world and has
medicinal properties also. About
a year ago, good amber was
selling for more per ounce than
gold, but there is recent auction
evidence to suggest that the
amber boom is over.
The other spike has been in the
pearl market, specifically the
natural saltwater pearl market.
Cultured pearls are natural
beads ‘farmed’ in seawater by
introducing man made beads in
to the soft tissue of an oyster.
The oyster’s reaction to these
‘irritations’ is to cover them in
‘nacre’, which is the lustrous shell
like covering that we see on the
pearl necklaces in most shops.
The beads can be 4 or 5 mm
in diameter so the thickness of
the nacre coating can be pretty
thin and lacking in lustre depth.
In a natural seawater pearl the
oyster takes in the occasional
tiny grain of sand around which
it builds up the layers of nacre,
so in an 8 mm diameter natural
pearl you may have 7 mm depth
of nacre rather than 3 or 4 mm in
a cultured pearl. If you put one of
each of these pearls together the
wonderful depth of lustre of the
natural pearl is very apparent.
Again a laboratory certificate
and an up to date valuation is a
must. But the main problem for
the pearl market is the arrival of
freshwater pearls from China.
These are farmed in rivers and
lakes and not in oysters but in
mussels. A mussel can produce
more pearls, more often, but they
can be of poor lustre and are
prone to being misshapen. They
are however very cheap and can
be seen up to 15 mm in diameter.
Whilst auction prices for fairly
modern ‘ordinary’ jewellery
can very modest indeed – and
a small fraction of its retail
replacement price – the market
for ‘big name’ pieces with good
style and quality is as strong
as ever. Cartier, early Tiffany,
Boucheron, Bulgari, Buccellati,
and Lalique all sell strongly.
From the previous century there
is a strong collectors’ market for
work by Castellani and Giuliano
and anything with an interesting
historical or royal background
will generally fare well.
So, with the price of
gold, diamonds and
jewellery continually
changing, seeking
professional advice and
having your jewellery
reviewed annually is
extremely important.
You may find that the values
may have stayed the same, but
it is always worth confirming
this and as part of Pall Mall
Art Advisors Collection
Management system we can
easily check this for you.
At Pall Mall Art Advisors our
team of jewellery specialists
monitor prices and trends
in the international market
to make sure that you can
be properly informed when
choosing to sell your piece. We
can also provide you with an
accurate valuation for insurance
purposes, reducing the prospect
of any issues arising out of loss.
Accurate valuations can also
play a vital role in successful
estate planning.
If you would like to know more about the service Pall Mall Art Advisors offers, please
contact us by calling +44 (0)203 159 5425 or by visiting pallmallartadvisors.com
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This article was first published in March 2016.
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