The most valuable types of gemstones: 6 treasures to marvel at.
“Diamonds are a girl’s best friends” – these lyrics no longer apply. High-quality jewelry and precious stones are popular collector’s items among all genders. It’s worth not just thinking about diamonds. There is a number of gemstones that shimmer in a variety of colors and are rare and valuable. Here we present six types of the most valuable gemstones.
Contents:
- Diamond: A fascinating high-caliber “stone”
- Musgravite: One of the rarest gemstones type in the world
- Alexandrite: A color-changing gem
- Padparadscha Sapphire: The gemstone with a reddish shimmer
- Black Opal: A gem as a piece of jewelry
- Tanzanite: The rare treasure of Africa
- Beauty and elegance in its purest form is what unites all types of gemstones
Diamond: A fascinating high-caliber “stone”
When a diamond is perfectly cut, it captures the light and allows it to emerge through reflections on its top. A fascinating play of light. Pure white diamonds are considered particularly valuable. But there is one exception: The so-called fancy diamonds. These include diamonds that can range in color from blue to pink and fall outside the usual color scale of D (very fine white +) to Z (yellow).
The more intense the color, the higher the value of the fancy diamonds – because of their rarity, which is often even higher than that of colorless diamonds. Boasting a bit more than five carats, the “Moussaieff Red” is is one of the largest known red diamonds. Fewer than 30 of these red gemstones of the highest quality have been found worldwide.
Fun fact: There are now highly professional methods of turning a white diamond into a colored one. Reputable dealers identify these stones as such.
Musgravite: One of the rarest types
One of the distinctions of a stone is its rarity. This characteristic applies to musgravite more than any other stone in the world. The gemstone of exceptional beauty was first discovered in Australia: in the Musgrave Ranges, which gave the gemstone its name.
The play of colors of Musgravite ranges from a dark, almost black green to a grayish violet. Locations in Madagascar, which is the mother of many other types of Gemstones and Greenland are now also known. However, so far there are only ten documented finds of larger gem-quality musgravite stones.
Fun fact: A one-carat piece of this rare gemstone costs about 25,000 euros.
Alexandrite: A color changing gem
Alexandrite is a very attractive gemstone: depending on the type of light falling on it, the color of the stone changes to the human eye. When the gemstone is illuminated by natural light, it appears as a green gemstone. Artificial light, on the other hand, makes it appear pink to red.
A subspecies of alexandrite is very rare: the alexandrite cat’s eye. The appearance of this gemstone is created by fine channels inside the alexandrite, which are arranged parallel to each other. The refraction of light is reminiscent of a cat’s eye.
Fun fact: A carat of this valuable stone costs 10,000 to 11,000 euros. It is named after the Russian Tsar Alexander II.
Padparadscha sapphire: The gemstone with a reddish shimmer
Most people associate sapphires with the color blue. But these gemstones are available in a wide variety of colors. The color of the Padparadscha sapphire is orange to pink and shimmers reddish depending on the light. Characteristic of this stone is the light color saturation with absolute magnifying clarity – no inclusions can be seen.
These red gemstones are mainly found in Sri Lanka, Madagascar and Tanzania. How valuable this gemstone is is shown by the fact that a stone weighing one carat and of good quality is worth 6,500 to 7,500 euros.
Fun fact: You can marvel at the largest Padparadscha sapphire in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It weighs a whopping 100.18 carats and has an elegant oval cut.
Black Opal: A gem as a piece of jewelry
Of all types of opal, the black variety is the most valuable and highly valued. Mainly gemstones from Lightning Ridge, a town in the north of the Australian state of New South Wales. Black opal is only found there. The black gemstone has a very dark basic tone.
However, this is overlaid by a colorful, shimmering play of colors that makes this stone so special. A carat of the extremely sought-after black opal costs around 3,000 euros.
Fun fact: Connoisseurs recommend wearing jewelry with a black opal during the day because the stone needs a lot of light to shimmer beautifully.
Tanzanite: The rare treasure from Africa
Compared to other gemstones, tanzanite is a youngster: It was only discovered in 1967 in the mines of Tanzania. Although some stones were also found in a Pakistani deposit, they do not come close to the high quality of the treasures from Tanzania. The main thing that makes this stone valuable is the assumption that its supply will run out in the next 20 or 30 years.
Tanzanite is a blue variant of the mineral zoisite. In its purest form, tanzanite shines in a beautiful dark blue, easily confused with the blue of sapphire. On average, a gemstone of this type weighing one carat costs around 1,000 euros.
Fun fact: Although tanzanite is 1,000 times rarer to find than diamond, the blue gemstone is more affordable and is usually being cut in a ring or necklace.
Beauty and elegance in its purest form is what unites all types of gemstones
They are among the most beautiful and rarest stones in the world. Gemstones are a true miracle of nature and can hardly be surpassed in terms of beauty. Regardless of the variant – the noble types of gemstones are equally enchanting as pieces of jewelry and have great appeal as collector’s items. Nature has provided enough variety; after all, there are over 100 types of gemstones known that can also be made into beautiful, sustainable jewelry.
What does the country of origin say about a gemstone?
The country of origin alone is not a distinction for gemstones, but it does provide information about the quality to be expected. The main quality categories of gemstones that determine their value are:
The color
The weight in carats
The cut
The clarity
These four main characteristics of gemstones are called the “4 Cs”.
What is carat in gemstones?
In addition to the cut, the size of a gemstone has a significant impact on its value. The size and weight of a gemstone are measured in carats. One carat is equal to 200 milligrams and is abbreviated with the letters “ct”. But be careful: the carat for measuring gemstones has nothing to do with the purity of processed gold – this unit of measurement is also called carat and has the abbreviation “k”.
