Imagine that you managed to save up a certain amount and you are agonizingly wondering where to invest it, so that, as it was said in some advertisement, “ preserve and increase. ” There is a list of the most popular options – real estate, precious metals (bullion or “metal accounts”), antiques, cars, currency and so on.

Among these options, a rather exotic one may come to mind: investing in precious gemstones. Everyone knows that “semi-precious stones” and other diamonds cost a lot of money, and over time they only get more expensive. Surely everyone has watched the numerous adventures of Indiana Jones and similar adventurous films, where heroes are chasing some incredible diamond and crazy collectors are ready to shell out fabulous sums.

Read what experts think of this topic. Below are several points of view of foreign professionals who directly deal with precious gemstones.

The founder of the online resource for trading gemstones:

Investing in precious gemstones is one of the most risky. There are a number of reasons why you can lose your investment:

fraud

political risks

too subjective assessments by experts

low liquidity

As with any commodity, stone prices depend on the combination of supply and demand in the market. But, unlike gold, stones are not created by nature alike. In addition, prices are influenced by:

political situation

wars

scientific developments and

fashion

Investing in gemstones requires a good level of expertise – knowledge and research work.

Considering these risks, investing in gemstones is a profitable business. Moreover, if the purchase of “ordinary” gemstones such as rubies, sapphires and emeralds provides you with excellent investment potential rather than investing in rarer and less popular gemstones. 

What gemstones are recommended to buy for investment purposes?

Should you invest in rubies? Ideally, gems intended as an investment purchase should be at least 2 carats in weight, and have an “above average” rating in color, cut, clarity, durability, origin and rarity.

For a group of the world’s most famous gemstones (rubies, emeralds, sapphires and alexandrites), the average cost of a stone should be at least 3 thousand US dollars. The reason is that less expensive stones are likely to be too “ordinary”, and “investment stones” must be rare and valuable.

Stones such as spinels, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, blue tourmalines, tsavorites, demantoids and alexandrites can be considered for investment purposes. Over the past 30 years, they have shown good upward price trends and the value of some of them (for example, spinels, demantoids, tsavorites, alexandrios and Paraiba tourmalines) has grown more than 20 times during this time.

If you are investing in stones for the first time, investing in blue sapphires is the safest, but also an expensive venture. Sapphires have historically held the highest value. They are sturdy, hardy, and will be highly appreciated if they are large enough and considered rare.

Jeweler’s opinion

Prices for gemstones, of course, are growing, and sometimes very significantly. However, I do not advise non-professionals to invest in gems! Why? Ordinary people will never know the “fair” value of a particular stone and jewelers, in turn, will not pay an honest price for a stone if they buy it from an amateur.

The opinion of a jewellery chain manager

Unless you are a professional stone dealer, never consider investing in stones for investment purposes. Your option is to buy stones at the regular retail price (the one that is more expensive) and selling at a lower one – exactly like buying and selling currency, taking into account the current quotes. But this must be done with the help of an expert intermediary. It will help you buy cheaper and sell more expensive than the average non-professional market participant will.

If you are still enthusiastic about doing it yourself, ask the people who bought diamonds on their own in the 1980s – did they manage to make a return on their investment?