Top Five Gemstone Investments for 2024

About Gemstock and Gemstone Investments

For more than five years, we at Gemstock have tracked gemstone price indicators affecting value swings, such as:

• Occurrence frequency for rare stones
• Percentage of stones with and without treatment
• Percentage of stones from different mining regions
• The impact of varying carat weight categories, cut quality, clarity level, and color (including trade colors) on value
• Gemological reports from different well-known laboratories
• Growth in global demand
• Supply changes
• Any changes in mining areas

We've analyzed more than 90,000 gemstones since 2018. Each analysis below uses 2018 as the baseline year.

Here are our top five picks for gemstone investments in 2024.

Paraíba Tourmaline

The price of paraíbas — the rarest and most expensive copper-bearing variety of tourmaline from Brazil, Mozambique, and Nigeria — has been growing for the last 30 years. (Paraíba mining began in 1989). I made my first paraíba tourmaline deals in 2012. I clearly remember how expensive this stone seemed to me at the time. Its price ranged from hundreds of dollars per carat for good-quality stones to $2,000 per carat for high-quality stones.

Over the last decade, paraíba has seen a few sharp price increases. From 2012 to 2014, prices grew consistently at roughly 12% per year, per my estimate. 2015 saw an increase of approximately 28%. Between 2016 and 2017, price increases stayed within 15%, a reasonable range for rare colored stones. We tracked another notable increase of 31% in 2018, followed by a few years of lower price increases. However, we tracked a record increase of 118% in 2022.

Based on the prices in our database, we believe paraíba prices increased by 27% in 2023 and will keep going up in 2024. For example, a historical maximum per-carat price for Brazilian paraíba was recorded at the ASEAN Bangkok Jewelry Show on April 27, 2023. A 7.2-carat stone sold for $160,000 per carat. (This price was the dealer's wholesale price). 

I predict paraíba tourmaline prices have more room to run based on the rarity and beauty of the stone.

Mahenge Spinel

I started my collection of colored stones more than ten years ago with spinel, mostly gems from Burma, Vietnam, and Tajikistan. In 2017, I collected my first Tanzanian spinel, a five-carat orange-red gem. At that time, the Mahenge deposit was gaining more brand recognition. 

The chart above shows that pink and red, the most in-demand colors of Tanzanian spinel, make up 58.3% and 7.6%, respectively, of all the spinels mined in Tanzania. Since red is rarer, it's more expensive than pink.

According to my records, Mahenge spinel has also seen an explosive growth in prices:

• A 47% increase in 2018
• An even higher jump of 51% in 2019
• An approximately 16% rise from 2020 to 2021
• A 22% increase in 2022
• A 25% increase in 2023 

Generally, consumers remain unaware of spinel. However, as more designers look for rare and beautiful colored gemstones, look for spinel — especially Mahenge spinel — to become more mainstream and for prices to rise.

Cobalt Blue Spinel

In the summer of 2019, I bought my first cobalt blue spinel from Tanzania. The gem weighed just 0.5 carats. (Several well-known gemological labs had identified its source as Vietnam). That was my first investment in this rare material. At that time, small stones up to one carat filled the global market, and prices didn't exceed $1,000 per carat.

Between 2019 and 2021, Tanzanian cobalt blue spinel started appearing more frequently on the market. Today, cobalt blue spinel accounts for roughly 6.3% of all spinel mined in Tanzania, a figure comparable to red spinel.

In 2022, more than 180 cobalt blue spinels passed through my hands. Some samples exceeded 10-12 carats. Chinese buyers actively seek stones like these, and steady Chinese demand has increased the value of this rare gem in just one year. The first supply in 2022 (February through March) immediately showed a high average price in the $3,500-$6,000 per-carat range. By the summer of 2022, prices for similar quality gems started at $8,000 per carat and quickly reached $12,000. In the fall of 2022, high-quality blue cobalt spinels started at $15,000 per carat. By the end of the year, prices for exceptionally beautiful specimens reached the $20,000-25,000 per carat range.

2023 showed more stable growth. Prices for beautiful cobalt spinels range between $20,000-30,000 per carat.

Blue Sapphires from Burma

Blue sapphires are among the three most stable colored stones on the world gem market in terms of annual price growth. According to my records (we have more than 25,000 blue sapphires in our database), the price growth for these stones has stayed within 10% per year for the last ten years. With this data, we traced several interesting facts concerning the cost statistics, the occurrence frequency of blue sapphire from different mining regions, and the percentage of heated and unheated stones from each region.

The chart above shows that blue sapphires from Sri Lanka make up 68.9% of all blue sapphires mined. 79% of these are heated, and 21% are unheated. Blue sapphires from Burma (Myanmar) are much rarer, accounting for only 3.1% of all blue sapphires mined. However, unlike Sri Lankan sapphires, only 17% of Burmese stones are heated, while 83% remain unheated. This indicates the market's preference for preserving the natural color of these rare stones. This category of blue sapphires has shown us record growth in per-carat value from 2018 to 2022.

I took the most common weights of unheated Burmese blue sapphires of good gem quality, 2-5 carats. Starting from the 2018 average per-carat price of $3,900, we saw prices increase as follows:

• 2019: +15%
• 2020: +16%
• 2021: +19%
• 2022: +36%
• 2023: +28%

Sapphires have always been popular. However, with a growing supply of blue sapphires from Madagascar and Sri Lanka, I expect unheated blue sapphires from Burma to jump in value in 2024 due to demand from discerning investors and gem collectors.

Editor's note: The 2021 U.S. sanctions against Myanmar include the gem trade.

Pigeon Blood Ruby

My team and I have tracked ruby prices in Asia since 2014. In 2016, I collected my first ruby with unheated "pigeon blood" red color, the most valuable trade color.

Approximately 55.1% of all rubies mined today come from Mozambique. In 2022, I participated in three auctions of ruby rough from Mozambique: Gem Rock, FURA, and Gemfields. Analyzing the quality and volume of the rough mined in Mozambique gave me a deeper understanding of global ruby prices. Also, it allowed me to forecast the price direction for the coming years. We have also been working closely with a ruby and sapphire mining company in Madagascar over the last year, a region that now accounts for 13.9% of all rubies mined. I believe the volumes from this region will increase over the next three years.

Despite increased ruby rough production in various regions, prices show stable growth. Each auction fixes new record bids for ruby lots, which leads to even higher prices for cut stones on the market. I consider ruby to be the most secure investment gemstone.

Since 2018, stones have returned to the market in sufficient volumes for our statistics. The color category is vivid red (pigeon blood), and the most popular weight ranges are 2-3 carats. In 2018, the average price per carat for heated and unheated stones with the above characteristics was $2,500 and $5,000, respectively. Since then, prices have increased as follows: 

• 2019: +14%
• 2020: +12%
• 2021: +18%
• 2022: +24%
• 2023: +19%

Discerning investors and gem collectors will look for pigeon blood rubies. With a dynamic like that of blue sapphires from Burma, the prices of these rarer rubies will also rise.