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“If you’ve ever wondered why I’m such a strategic hoarder of gemstones, you can blame the global economy.” Ring in platinum with 1.07 ct. oval paraiba, 0.19 ct. t.w. round paraiba, and 1.27 cts. t.w. diamonds; $29,272; Yael Designs; sales@ yaeldesigns.com; yaeldesigns.com
—Daria de Koning
2.92 ct. Paraiba tourmaline from Brazil sold by Mayer & Watt
American rhodolite garnets in mixed shapes from Columbia Gem House
Modo ring with bicolor tourmaline, tourmaline, and diamonds in 18k rose gold; AED 18,900 ($5,145); Zome; hello@zo-me.com; zo-me.com
being our top collection of the year. We sold all the big gold pieces. Gold has taken on a new status. Rather than a designer name, people are after the look of gold.” Gold’s dramatic pre-Tucson price surge and subsequent retreat was a near-constant topic of conversation at the gem shows. But amid the gold chatter, there was another refrain: “Garnets, spinel, and tourmaline.” AGTA past president Kimberly Collins was among the many dealers who cited their popularity, especially in red and off-red varieties such as rubellite. At the Noelle Habib Gems booth, Hannah Becker (aka @Diamondoodles) explained that the San Francisco dealer had seen a lot of interest in raspberry tones of garnet, “almost mauve.” She also noted that with prices on garnets, spinel, and tourmaline rising, demand for more traditional stones was taking a hit. “Sapphire’s becoming less elevated because spinel is coming up to meet it at the same price point,” Becker said. “One to 3 carat size things are all starting to converge at the same price point.” Across the street from the convention center, dealers at the GJX show, home to many international companies, confirmed that dynamic. At the popular Bangkok gem dealer Nomad’s, Sébastien Bahri singled out spinel from the Mahenge region of Tanzania as particularly expensive. “We’ve slowed down buying,” Bahri said. “The last few years it’s just ballistic. There’s competition JCKONLINE.COM
at the mine for buyers, and the price has gone up. Overall production is dwindling.” For Santa Fe, N.M., jeweler Daria de Koning, the supply challenges she encountered in Tucson inspired a blog post, “Confessions of a Jeweler: Why I Hoard Gemstones,” dated March 3. “If you’ve ever wondered why I’m such a strategic hoarder of gemstones, you can blame the global economy,” de Koning wrote. “Between gold prices currently surging past $5,100 an ounce and the wild reality of the gemstone supply chain, navigating my industry right now is not for the faint of heart. “Beautiful resources are getting scarcer by the minute. Between international sanctions keeping gems out of the U.S., cartels limiting mining access, and a younger generation that would rather be social media influencers than do the grueling work of mining and cutting…finding fresh material is harder than ever,” she continued. “The toughest part? Seeing mines completely depleted. Stones I used to see just five years ago are simply gone. Thank goodness I’ve been stockpiling!” De Koning picked up a sizable pair of blue-green aquamarine cabochons from Brazil in Tucson, but her comment could easily have referred to paraiba tourmaline. Dealer after dealer reported scarce supplies of the gem coupled with insatiable demand. “Clean paraibas—the market is very hungry for clean 2 to 4 carat stones,” said Bahri of Nomad’s. At German dealer Wild & Petsch’s booth at GJX, Douglas Mays echoed that sentiment. “The paraiba market has skyrocketed,” he said. “Have you seen the auction results? Finding clean material is nearly impossible.” He, too, remarked on the general direction sales were headed (in a word: up). “We’re not selling mediocre quality—it’s been that way the last three to four years,” Mays said. “The mom-and-pops, the middle, are not around as much. I’m working on bigger, higher-end. Everyone’s asking for fine-quality stones: n atural sapphires, minimum-oil emeralds. Is it a K-shaped economy? 100%.” SUMMER 2026