Gold, silver and precious stone price correlations owed;
Does anyone know if the prices of precious stones have risen in
correlation with the price rises for gold and silver?
Peter- Stone prices have risen. Especially diamond melle prices.
However they do not correlate to metals prices. Each market has
different drivers.
Gold and silver are traded commodities and rise and fall not because
of supply and demand, but by fear and market instability. Platinum
rose but not as much because it’s still priced more by supply and
demand.
Stone prices are driven by a number of factors. Rarity is first.
Good rubies are very scarce. The embargo on Burma makes the price
even higher for fine Burmese rubies. Things are dicy in several
African countries so their stones get more expensive as it becomes
dangerous to work there.
Emerald prices took off decades ago when the Columbian Cocaine
cartels were fighting it out. No one was willing to go there to buy.
Fashion is another driver of stone prices. It’s always changing.
Green was this year’s color. I remember when you couldn’t give away a
colored diamond. Let alone a black one.
Diamonds are priced by DeBeers. Thought they are not as much in
control as they used to be they still wield a mighty hammer when it
comes to prices.
These are the reasons that I keep very current on international
political news and economic developments. I like to read Google News
to get an international spin on the news. If I see a coup coming in a
country that I want stones from, I buy before things get nasty. There
has been a strike at a big platinum mine in Africa, so plat prices
rose recently. This is stuff you just don’t get from American TV or
print news. If the Fed makes policy changes I want to be positioned
to buy or sell metals or take out a loan with a locked interest rate.
All this said, I do not have a PHD in Economics. I have a GED. I’m a
crack pot jeweler. Do not take this as sound investing advice.
Have fun and make lots of jewelry.
Jo Haemer
timothywgreen.com
Peter,
Most definitely as there is direct correlations to prices ofgemstones
and metals. As example fellow miners in Peru who used to mine
peruvian blue opal and thus owned copper areas no longer mine blue
opal as the mines no longer produce and the investment in labor to
mine such is not economical compared to mining tonnages of copper ore
and making a lot more money on such. Such is also the case with all
copper based gemstones and in Zambia and Congo and such ores are now
being refined to cooper, and other ingots in Congo and in the copper
belt of Zambia or Congo. Thus prices for all copper based stones
worldwide has risen with the prices of metals they are associated
with. In fact many stones are thrown in with copper ore in mining.
Also many copper mines/properties or metal oreproperties are being
bought out by china and other foreign companies for the exclusive
mining of copper ore or other ores exclusively leaving vastshortages
in gemstones associated with those ores/metals.
In Peru as another exam there is no ortiz rhodocrosite being mined as
this stone and rhodonite are found in maganese ore areas. There area
also other ores such as silver, gold, etc found with manganese. Thus
the vast shortages in ortiz rhodocrosite (translucent red) as well as
pink banded rhodocrosite, bacon rhodocrosite, etc. Also such areas
are being sold and mined by Chinese and other foreign mining
companies for the ores-metals not the gemstonesWe are one of the very
few companies with limited stocks of rough, cut cabs, beads in blue
opal, premium and superior pink opal, opaline (a gem silica-blue
opal), and ortiz rhodocrosite. If you come to Lima Peru you will not
find blue opal except for some very very low quality older materials
if they can be located.
Lee Horowitz
the two are entirely unrelated. Stone prices are based on
availability, mining production- or lack thereof and the abundance of
stock in lapidaries and/ or vendors stock. Another factor that has
come to bear on stone prices is the proliferation of TV channels
offering semi-precious materials marketed under various names and
treatments. For example if a supplier has tonnes of amethyst that has
been sitting around for years, or deals with a miner or operation
that has hit a new pocket of the material and it is necessary to move
a lot of the stone quickly, they may heat treat it (as has happened
starting, at least, in the last 4 years with this particular
material) and sell it as “green amethyst”, or some other colour that
results when the stone is subjected to varying temperatures of heat
for distinct periods of time that produce different results in terms
of colour or the intensity of a hue that can be recreated when the
same conditions are met again and again insuring that “green
amethyst” will be available at least, until they have moved the
amount of material necessary to accommodate their new inventory.
There are also the various vapour deposition coatings that are most
often applied to lower quality materials that wouldn’t sell as they
are naturally falling in the 'd" grade or close to it, that allow
vendors to sell the resulting product under a gimmick-y name, like
"mystic topaz", that appeals to a portion of for instance. New
stones?, not really- new gimmicks- certainly. Every year at Tuscon
one can get an idea of what is trendy in treated materials as well as
the abundance of a certain stone in its natural state if the actual
vendor is also the miner or directly linked to that person or group
and not a remotely connected reseller. I have a friend in Kenya that
has formed a mining collective uniting those that actually dig the
tsavorite in Mt. Tsavo National Park and others that mine tanzanite
in tanzania and while I have heard that the supply of tsavorite is
depleted (from various communications related sources like press and
broadcast as well as on the internet) he says that tsavorite
production is continuing though slightly reduced. this is an effort
to drive the prices up. Equally, any time there is any kind of
unified collective one can expect prices of whatever the product is
to rise, and a trade in that same material to become available from
marketers not involved in collectives at prices that beat those a
collective sets, particularly where mining is a subsistence
occupation and an individual deals directly with buyers at local
weekend type markets and weekly bazzars in various places.
i hope this helps clarify the situation. rer
I have noticed that the prices of Rhodolite garnets has gone up
considerably in price. However, I have been told that this is due to
the mines running dry.
Alma
Peter,
I have to disagree with Lee Horowitz- he sells Peruvian Opal. one
can’t base the price of ALL gemstones on any single region, country
doing the mining, world economics (which have very little to do with
gem and mineral prices regardless of the rarity or abundance of rough
or cut stones) and in particular * current * mining operations For
one thing current operations don’t account for any stocks of
mineral material that may have been sitting in a rock shop for 20
years, or prices of material sold on sources like on-line auction
sites from Chinese vendors which are often not what they are stated
to be and further, the material may be from sources that are
questionable (i. e.- much of the ruby, sapphire and spinel offered by
Chinese vendors comes from Burma or through Indonesian borders of
which trade is restricted to many countries by many governments but
is apparently not realised by e- auction sites) which can mask the
true value of the material due to the need to get rid of it quickly.
When a subsistence farmer searches the gravels in his rice paddies
for desirable minerals to supplement his income selling it by any
means necessary is more a priority than obeying laws intended for
larger operations, consequentially the profit he or she sees is far
less than the Chinese person selling it on an auction site yet still
puts a bit of extra food in the householder in Burma’s family’s
bellies. Nonetheless, it has nothing to do with precious metals. of
which copper is not related. There is enough of a supply of copper
containing minerals that are in demand for jewellery making and
lapidary in various worldwide locations including the US that the
trade is barely affected by ore mining anywhere in the world. As far
as mineral materials being “thrown in” with ores being mined, as far
as gold, silver and the platinum group is concerned the minerals
most commonly associated with soils containing gold etc. are not
rare, are abundant and do not impact prices of materials sought after
in jewelery making. Peru is a small fish in the global supply chain
of minerals that are routinely cut and faceted for jewellery or even
mineral collecting purposes. Peru’s gold was mined and depleted long
ago so their participation in supply to the precious metals market is
more closely associated with the sale of gold objects as cultural
artefacts than placer deposits or ores. Again the price of gold like
the price of diamonds- though not at all related to each other except
that they are both used in the manufacture of jewellery, is
artificially inflated by De beers in the case of diamond prices and
commodities trader’s forecasting “futures” in the case of gold -
neither bares any truth in the supply or demand relative to either
material but does offer unnecessarily inflated prices.
More affect on the materials is the cost of logistics relative to
moving materials solely available out of country to buyers in areas
that do not have a given material available in ones native country so
using it becomes dependant upon a chain of transportation dependent
on petroleum products to move anything anywhere: from the petrol in
trucks to get them to buying centres, to the dependence on petroleum
based fuels in air and ground transportation to shows, buyers markets
and in worldwide postal services as well as personal vehicles that
bring small scale dealers to flea markets, rock shops and other small
resellers if not directly to metalsmiths. Books published that
purport to set or list the prices for stones and rough are as
unreliable as futures markets. they only reinforce inflated prices
and attempt to convince buyers that asking prices are in fact
reasonable, when they are not in many instances… rer
If you know anything about mining in Peru or in Zambia, Kenya,
Tanzania, etc which we do then you willknow all gemstones associated
with metals or ores have risen in price due to the mining of such
ores This is why gem silica prices have risen so much if available or
blue opal, etc. Also rhodocrosite, etc It is more economical for
miners to mine for metals due to ore-metal prices.
Lee Horowitz
Hi everyone, I talk about here in Brazil, referring to prices of
rough. The price of this rising because the supply is less than
demand, this is due to low production of the mines that are becoming
less, great movement purchasing from China and India, and increased
environmental control. Regards. Carlos Peixoto Brazil
This discussion has been interesting but correct me if I am wrong -
all from the supply side. On the demand side, if you want maximum
value for a few hundred grams of stony extract which you can carry on
your person when the local economy of nation x disintegrates what do
you buy?
Fine rubies and sapphires. In the long run much more scarce than
diamonds and easier to carry around than gold or silver. Because Jews
have historically been persecuted and chased from one country to
another, many got into the diamond and gemstone business. They could
pack up their inventory and cut an run in a big hurry when the
Cossacks came riding into town.
However, I do keep and often wear my “third world savings account”.
It’s 10 high karat bangles from the middle and far east. I saved them
from the scrap melt down pile over the years. I know that where ever
I am in the world, if my passport, credit cards, and money are stolen
I can get enough cash for my bangles to get myself a cab to the
American Embassy, buy dinner and a hotel room for the night.
In the old days when America Express Traveller’s Checks were the
gold standard… We had an old family friend, Douglas Bazata,(google
him for fun), who was a spook. He had to cut and run from a country
in a hurry. He clipped the corners with the serial numbers off and
hid them in the heel of his shoe. American Express honored them.
Really. True story. You can’t make this kind of stuff up.
Have fun and make lots of jewelry.
Jo Haemer
timothywgreen.com