Quartz: A Girl’s New Best Friend January 21, 2006 – Posted in: Press

By CHERYL LU-LIEN TAN
Published: January 21, 2006
Wall Street Journal

Chris Chiarella thought buying his wife a colorful necklace or bracelet for her birthday recently would be a cinch. But he had an anxiety attack when the jeweler laid out piece after piece studded with brightly colored stones he had never heard of — all priced over $2,000.

“I felt like I do when I go to the mechanic — that I don’t know enough and I’m in over my head,” says the portfolio manager from Carlsbad, Calif., who wound up choosing a plain woven gold necklace.

For years, top dollar in the jewelry world went to the four precious stones: diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires. Now jewelers are charging — and getting — surprisingly high prices for the gem world’s also-rans: semiprecious stones that were once considered low-budget alternatives. Some are even pushing pieces featuring rocks with Geology 101 names such as sodalite that until recently were viewed as too soft or not glittery enough to bother with. Never mind that experts say many of these stones aren’t likely to hold their value as well as precious stones.

The elevation of semiprecious stones will be on display for Valentine’s Day shoppers this year. At Harry Winston, 10% to 15% of jewelry with colored stones contains the semiprecious variety, up from less than 2% two years ago. Links of London, with four stores in the U.S., estimates 40% of its line has semiprecious stones, up from 10% five years ago. Vera Wang has put baby pink morganites in $1,650 earrings and $4,000 rings. Tiffany has a $248,000 necklace whose main draw is a large electric-blue Paraiba tourmaline pendant.

The irony is that, because fashion is tilting toward brightly colored stones right now, these one-time B-list gems are getting more buzz than diamonds in some circles. But what’s really driving the move to semiprecious stones is rising costs for other materials. Prices of rough diamonds have risen as much as 40% over the past two years, due to a change in the way DeBeers distributes them, with large diamonds seeing the biggest increases, says Martin Rapaport, who publishes a report that people in the industry use to set prices. A slightly better than average one-carat diamond now goes for $9,440, he says. And the price of gold has surged to more than $500 an ounce, rising 18% last year alone; it’s now near a 25-year high. By using garnets and colored quartz instead of rubies and diamonds in her gold jewelry, designer Tina Tang says she has been able to keep prices stable.

As demand for semiprecious stones has risen, so have prices. In the three years since Ben Affleck gave Jennifer Lopez a pink diamond engagement ring, designers have snapped up so many sparkly pink morganites (a less-pricey alternative) that the wholesale price for a good quality stone has tripled to $150 a carat, according to Joseph Menzie, president of the International Colored Gemstone Association, who estimates that consumers pay two or three times that much. The wholesale price of a five-carat apatite, a sometimes murky green stone, has risen 50% in the past five years to $210, he says. (Apatite got its name from the Greek word “to deceive” because the stone can look like more-expensive gems like peridot.)

Designers, meanwhile, continue to reach for ever-more obscure stones in an effort to stand out. Prasiolite, for instance, isn’t exactly known as a girl’s best friend. But Terri Eagle, chief executive of jeweler John Hardy, says the company chose the grass-green stone mined in Brazil for a line of $995 rings it is about to roll out because green is supposed to be a popular color this year and “we didn’t want to do something that was your common green gemstone.” Designer David Yurman plans a line of cuff links and pendants featuring black stones with red streaks that the company calls dinosaur bones and describes as the mineralized remains of prehistoric animals. It introduced the stone last year in $475 to $1,875 men’s rings.

The result is that it’s harder for consumers to tell which stones should command top dollar and which shouldn’t. “I always thought anything that wasn’t a diamond, ruby or emerald was the same as cubic zirconia — costume jewelry,” says Cheryl Russo, an attorney from Hanover, Mass., who recently eyed a $150 pair of citrine earrings but didn’t buy them.

Some jewelers acknowledge that stores can charge a premium for colored jewelry because consumers tend to pick these pieces based more on style than value. “The profit margins are much more elastic,” says Jim Haag, managing director for high-end jeweler Jacob & Co., who suggests seeking the advice of a trusted jeweler.

Color intensity is the best way to gauge quality of these stones, experts say. The more saturated the color in both clear and milky stones, the more valuable they are. Clear stones that don’t have white streaks in them also are more valuable. Peter Schneirla, vice chairman at Harry Winston, adds that colored stones should be purchased in person, rather than online, because colors vary widely. “There’s no standard by which to compare and express color and quality with colored stones like there is with diamonds,” he says.

Shoppers should ask whether a stone has been treated with heat to intensify the color — and often boost the price. Tanzanite, for example, is naturally greenish brown but takes on its purplish tinge only after heating, Mr. Schneirla says. When high-end jewelers such as Tiffany, Cartier and Harry Winston provide certificates stating the value of colored stones, they note whether they have been heated because many people view treated stones as less pure.

One way to compare the dizzying array of stones popping up in jewelry today is to check how they rate on the industry-standard Mohs Scale of Hardness, which can indicate whether they might chip over time. Diamonds score a perfect 10. Many semiprecious stones are rated between 6 and 8.

Semiprecious stones aren’t likely to hold their value as well as precious ones. “I see a lot of people who have bought semiprecious stones and they’re very, very disappointed because when they want to resell, they’re only going to get 50% or less of what they paid,” says Tobina Kahn, vice president of House of Kahn Estate Jewelers in Palm Beach, Fla. “If you like semiprecious and think it’s a pretty stone, great. Just don’t buy it as an investment.”