De Beers started 2010 with a declaration: large scale trading is back. The first Sight of the year is widely estimated at $550 million, including a large quantity of specials and price increases. The market, anticipating rising prices in January, responded with strong demands that resulted in prices rising. Here is what happened, and where the market may be going in 2010.
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Inflation at both the jewelry wholesale and retail level may seem tame for 2009, but the underlying components of inflation were anything but stable. Commodities and currencies showed wild gyrations on a month-to-month basis during the year. When the dust settled, it was the same old story: margins were squeezed at almost every level of the jewelry pipeline. Consumers were the winners, and everyone else suffered.
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U.S. jewelry and watch sales showed solid gains in November 2009 versus the same month a year ago. November is the first month of the all-important holiday selling season. American consumers, who have grown tired of the depressing talk related to the recession, invoked the old adage, “When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping” and went to the malls. Merchants reported that customer traffic was up and sales improved, though the average jewelry ticket was down by about 10 percent or so.
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CIBJO has released a Special Report by its Gemological Commission ahead of its 2010 Congress next month in Munich, Germany, the organization announced Wednesday. The report analyzes the latest draft of the new Gemmological Laboratory Book, which is to be discussed and ratified at the Munich Conference.
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Jewelry sales in the U.S. rose 5.6 percent for November and December, while luxury retail excluding jewelry increased slightly by 0.8 percent this holiday season compared to last year, according to data released Monday by MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse.
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“Canary” radiant and icy white emerald cuts
GIA is an international non-profit gemological institute that appraises the value of loose diamonds. If you already have one or more GIA diamond rings, the stones were evaluated before they were set in the rings. The GIA set the tone for evaluating and analyzing diamonds and the same process is followed today by other diamond appraisal institutes, such as IGI appraisals. Such an appraisal is essential if you want to make sure that the diamonds you purchase are best value diamonds.
When you send loose diamonds to the GIA for grading, you will receive a report on each diamond. Reports of GIA diamond rings grading are extremely comprehensive, which is why you should be able to understand what the report says about the stones you have had appraised without too much trouble.
The date of the appraisal is always at the top of the report and there is a report number which is entered into the institute’s international database. If you wish, you can have this number laser inscribed on the diamond. The next part of the report on GIA diamond rings deals with the shape and the cutting style of the diamond.
The shape of the diamond has a lot to do with determining the setting of the diamond in the ring. The cuts include round, Princess, Marquise, oval and pear-shaped. Certain settings are suited to specific cuts to ensure that the diamond looks elegant in the ring and on the hand of the person wearing it. The most common settings for diamond rings are:
Solitaire in which the diamond is secured in a basket of four or six prongs so that it catches the light with each movement of the hand.
Sidestone settings have other stones on each side of the diamond to keep it in place and to add enhance the brilliance and color of the stone.
Three-stone settings have a diamond for the past, present and future.
The report for GIA diamond rings, much like IGI appraisals, also gives the measurement of the diamond. For round diamonds this is represented by the minimum depth and length and for fancy diamonds by the length times width times depth. The overall weight of the diamond is given in carats and the more carats there are the more expensive the diamond will be. This is another way of knowing whether or not you purchased best value diamonds. One carat is 1/5 of one gram and the weight is recorded to the nearest 1/100 of a carat.
There is a GIA master comparison scale when grading the color of diamonds. The best diamonds are white and almost colorless. While yellow diamonds are given the lowest grade, there are canary yellow stones that are quite valuable. These fall into the category of fancy diamonds along with those that are pink, blue, and green.
The clarity or clearness of a diamond according to the rating scale of GIA diamond rings refers to any imperfections that can be seen when the diamond is analyzed under high-power microscopes. Those diamonds with slight imperfections can still be considered best value diamonds if the imperfections in the gems are such that they cannot be seen with the naked eye or under a normal microscope.
Diamonds for GIA diamond rings are graded according to their polish and finish to determine their level of brilliance and how they reflect the light that falls on them. The diamonds are inspected for smoothness and the number of facets in the stone. Symmetry is also important to ensure that all facets are in balance and to determine the best placement of several stones in a ring.
Gemologists use ultra-violet lights to determine the amount of fluorescence in the diamonds and this is also given on the report. Many other appraisal institutes do not provide a report that is as comprehensive as one you receive from GIA. Your report will contain diagrams of the stone as well as keys to the various symbols used in the report.