Grading vs Pricing part1

Grading Vs. Pricing

Recently, quite a number of people have asked me for the buying prices for gems mostly from Myanmar. I could only tell you the recent market prices in proximity since each and every gem has different appearances as in cut, color, clarity, weight and overall quality they can be vary in value as well. I hope this information will help you to understand the basic strategies of gem overall quality vs. value, and price.

Putting it all together

Comparing the overall quality of two gems of the same variety is easy, provided they differ in only one quality factor-just color or clarity (natural gem inclusions), or cut. But in comparison it is trickier if two or especially, if all three factors differ. In such cases (which means with most stones) you need a way to correlate and quantify the combined effects of all these factors on the overall quality of a gem.

Obviously, there is a relationship between quality and value. The larger the difference between the quality ranks of any two stones of the same variety, the greater the price difference is likely to be. But price as we shall see, depends on several factors-of which quality is only one.

You know that nature, the basic source of supply, creates only very small amounts of certain gem materials, making them rarer than certain quality. You probably know that the varying locations of gemstone deposits and local political situations have an effect on mining costs and thus on the ultimate price of stones reaching the market. And the gem market itself introduces variables that influence price independently of the quality of the goods involved. We will also take a good look at the many variables that work together to help set market value. By the time you have learnt those factors, you will have a very good idea of what sets the price of a gem.