Examining (or re-examining) your jewelry’s replacement value

This year I have been busy appraising jewelry for insurance coverage. Some assignments have been updates of appraisals I’ve done over the past 35 years. Others have been updates of the “statements of sale” I give customers when I sell something, all the way back to the 1990s.

They have given me a fascinating opportunity to see how dramatically the value of most jewelry has changed over time.

When I opened in February 1991, the price of one ounce of fine (24-karat) gold was about $370. It hit $1,000 in March 2008; $2,000 in August 2020,. It broke through $3,000 in March of this year. Now, in August 2025, it is almost $3,400.

You see that it makes sense to re-evaluate coverage of gold jewelry. The more it weighs, the more intrinsic metal value increases it. (We’ll talk shortly about the cost of the skilled labor it takes to turn a lump of gold into fine jewelry.}

Diamond prices, on the other hand, have fallen over the past ten years. Average prices for round diamonds in better qualities (D-H colors, IF-VS2 clarities) have declined by 11.1% for 5-carat sizes, 21.8% for three-carat sizes, and 26.3% for stones in the one-carat category.

The decline in diamond prices is even more noticeable from five years ago. Business was booming during COVID, as isolation diverted consumer demand from travel and other luxury spending to jewelry. Then prices went up, and so did diamond supply.

Everything hit a wall when COVID ended. Demand collapsed when people got out again. China’s economy slumped, further eroding the worldwide consumer market. Diamond inventories, already too large, couldn’t be absorbed, and prices skidded.

This coincided with the greatest challenge to the traditional diamond business in its history — the rise of lab-grown diamonds. As production has improved, LGD prices have become inceredibly low, which has crippled demand for natural diamonds, especially for stones of medium to poor quality in weights under two carats.

This means that it doesn’t cost as much to replace natural diamonds now as it did three to five years ago. Although three- to five-carat diamonds in good qualities have somewhat rebounded this year, the whole market is still struggling to reach COVID and pre-COVID highs.

You see this decline especially in jewelry of commercial quality that has heavy total diamond weight in smaller stones, of the type often purchased from national jewelry chain stores usually found in malls.

I have re-appraised some diamond jewelry for 15-20% less than the values they had before COVID. The benefit — you don’t pay unnecessarily high premiums.

[A huge unknown is the new 25% tariff on goods imported from India, set to rise to 50% at the end of this month. Because 90% of all diamonds are cut in India, this barrier will make imports impossible and dry up inventories in the U.S., which will likely increase the value of diamonds already in this country.]

What happens to replacement value if you own exceptional jewelry? “Exceptional” means jewelry of a high level of design and craftsmanship. This quality usually goes with prestigious brand-name jewelry and is almost always signed by a retailer, designer, or manufacturer. Tiffany & Co. and Rolex are the classic examples.

But even when the jeweler is much less well-known, such as the best locally-owned jewelry store in town, if their jewelry (often custom-made) is sufficiently fine, you can count on their prices going higher over time.

This is because the number of jewelers who can actually sit at a bench and make the jewelry is growing smaller all the time. They may also be designers orplay a role in designing.

Catch any jewelry store owner in a candid mood and they will tell you how hard it is to find an excellent bench jeweler. They will tell you that there are many more job openings than qualified people to fill them.

Great jewelry is worth more because great craftsmanship costs more. The Bureau of Labor Statistics records a 32% increase in median annual wages for bench jewelers over the past ten years (and it can be argued they are too low). Labor-driven value changes can outpace diamond price changes in percentage terms, making periodic jewelry re-evaluations important.

You may be wondering about colored gemstones. There are about 20 gemstone “species” commonly seen in jewelry, from amber to zircon. Some are plentiful, like amethyst (a form of quartz), and others extremely rare, such as red beryl (so-called “red emerald") from Utah.

Each gem quality of a particular material has its own market, making it impossible to generalize about their values. Demand for any of them is small, and in most cases, supply is even smaller.

For instance, it has been said that the supply of outstanding 4.00-carat rubies is so limited that at any time, there may be less than a half-dozen available for sale in the world at any one time. This makes them more rare than D-color, Internally Flawless diamonds of the same weight.

Over the past 35 years, the star performer is the glowing “neon” blue to green tourmaline discovered in the Brazilian state of Paraiba. Back in the ‘90s, it commanded $1,000-1,500 per carat (at wholesale) — unheard of for tourmaline back then. Now, it can reach $67,000 per carat for 4.00-carat stones of extra-fine quality.

The value of a common material like amethyst does not change very much, but in the rare colored stones such as ruby, sapphire, and emerald, they may, depending on quality.

Few consumers own very fine faceted material weighing more than two or three carats. Put another way, I seldom see top or nearly top-grade colored stones mounted in the jewelry my appraisal clients bring me to appraise.

But when I do, if they acquired these stones 10-15 years ago, they cost quite a bit more to replace today.

I re-evaluated one such collection this year. I saw a rich red unheated Burmese ruby with a crimson-colored star; a large Imperial topaz whose shifting reddish orange color reminded me of Madeira wine, a greenish-yellow chysoberyl cat’s-eye with a sharp silvery-white eye and beautiful “milk-and-honey” effect when lit from the side — and a Paraiba tourmaline in one of the best medium-dark, neon “teal” colors I have ever seen — a very valuable stone.

No matter what kind of jewelry you own, its value will almost certainly change through the years. In uncertain times, fine jewelry is one way people preserve value, and I can help you do that with an appraisal for insurance coverage.

To help you get ready, here’s a guide I wrote about how to prepare to have your jewelry appraised.