Jewellery’s investment case strengthens as coloured stones and gold outshine diamonds
Global jewellery has grown into a resilient, broadly diversified market spanning branded maisons, independent ateliers and a deep secondary market at auction houses. To be sure, studies conducted by research firms and private banks have pointed in the same direction — jewellery demand is rising, thanks to increasing wealth in Asia. After the pandemic rebound, momentum cooled in 2023 to 2024, alongside a softer luxury cycle and weaker demand for discretionary watches and diamonds. Yet, the top end of jewellery, which includes signed pieces from leading houses and rare coloured gemstones with robust lab reports, continues to attract competition at auctions, underpinned by scarcity and global bidder participation.
That bifurcation matters for investors. Beyond being a wearable accessory, high-quality jewellery has become a credible store of value. It does not pay a dividend and it is illiquid outside of prime auction seasons, but selected pieces have compounded in value across multiple cycles, offering low correlation to equities and a hedge against currency or policy risk.
The industry today is navigating two cross-currents. First, prices for commercial-grade diamonds have been pressured by lab-grown supply reaching scale, reshaping consumer expectations on size and sparkle at given budgets.
Second, demand has pivoted to natural rarity — coloured stones with verified origin and no treatment, especially Burmese rubies, Kashmir and Burmese sapphires, Colombian emeralds and neon Paraíba tourmalines — and to iconic designs by luxury jewellery brands, such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bvlgari, Tiffany & Co and Harry Winston.
According to a report by Bain & Co titled “Luxury in Transition: Securing Future Growth” published in January 2025, jewellery was the most resilient core luxury category in 2024, growing by 0% to 2% at current exchange rates to reach €31 billion in sales. This performance was driven by consistent high-low brand strategies and enhanced customer-centric approaches.
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High jewellery significantly outperformed less elevated parts of the market. Competition intensified, with luxury fashion houses expanding their presence in the segment and rising local giants seeking to grow beyond their domestic markets.
Prices tell the story
A combination of market data and auction results through 2023 and 2024 show a similar trend of a widening gap between the best goods and the rest. Natural fancy-coloured diamonds remain trophy assets, but the broad diamond market softened as lab-grown stones proliferated at lower prices per carat. Retail buyers seeking carat weight shifted to man-made stones, depressing prices for mid-tier natural diamonds. By contrast, fine coloured gemstones with strong origin reports kept setting benchmarks.
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For instance, a 55.22-carat Mozambican ruby, the “Estrela de Fura”, sold for US$34.8 million in 2023, underscoring investor demand for exceptional rubies with pronounced fluorescence. Unheated Burmese rubies in the five- to 10-carat range, with SSEF or Gübelin reports, command high five- to seven-figure prices, depending on colour and clarity, and the top “pigeon’s blood” stones trade at a significant premium.
Meanwhile, Kashmir sapphires above five carats with velvety saturation and unheated status remain extremely scarce and have seen consistent price strength per carat, while Burmese sapphires in a hue of royal blue also draw spirited bidding. Similar enthusiasm is seen in other gems such as emeralds and tourmalines.
These dynamics are amplified by brand. Signed Art Deco Cartier bracelets with calibré-cut rubies and sapphires, Panthère brooches with onyx and diamonds, Van Cleef & Arpels Mystery Set rubies, Bvlgari Serpenti bracelets and Monete coin jewels, and Tiffany & Co Schlumberger designs attract premium multiples versus unsigned peers. Original boxes, invoices and workshop numbers meaningfully improve outcomes, a point that matters for investors underwriting future resale. Condition and originality matter. Over-polished surfaces, replaced stones or altered mounts reduce value and narrow the buyer pool.
While gems take the headlines, the kicker is gold. The metal’s price pushed into record territory recently as central banks continued net purchases, inflation proved sticky and geopolitical risk stayed elevated. High-carat gold content supports intrinsic value for many vintage and Italian 1960s to 1970s pieces, cushioning downside even when fashion cycles cool.
For investors comparing jewellery with blue-chip equities, this matters. Gold provides a hard floor that diamonds do not, and when mounted in signed, fashionable forms, the combined scarcity of metal, design and provenance can deliver equity-like returns at exit, albeit with higher transaction costs.
Brand sentiment
Jewellery’s branded core sits within two European groups. Richemont owns Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels; and LVMH houses Bvlgari and Tiffany & Co. In the recent full-year financial results, jewellery outperformed watches within both groups, though growth moderated from the post-pandemic surge.
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Richemont delivered an overall robust performance for FY2025 ended March 31, led by growth in the group’s Jewellery Maisons segment, which saw sales reach EUR15.3 billion ($23 billion), representing a y-o-y increase of 8% at actual and constant exchange rates. “Our Jewellery Maisons delivered EUR4.9 billion operating results, up 4% versus the [previous] year, corresponding to a solid margin at close to 32%,” says Johann Rupert in the group’s most recent annual report. The Jewellery Maisons segment represents 72% of the group’s FY2025 overall group sales.
For LVMH, the watches and jewellery segment fell 2% y-o-y to EUR10.6 billion on a constant currency basis in FY2024 ended Dec 31. The most buoyant regions were Japan, France and the Middle East. “The watches and jewellery business group proved resilient in the face of mixed trends across different markets, once again backed by the expert craftsmanship of the watchmaking maisons and the bold innovation strategy of the jewellery maisons,” says LVMH in its FY2024 results report, adding that business was also buoyed by the selective expansion of their retail networks, promotional events and partnerships with artists and athletes.
Outside the two groups, Harry Winston, which is owned by Swatch Group, remained focused on high jewellery and rare stones, and independent maisons such as Buccellati and Graff continued to lean into craftsmanship narratives and museum collaborations. The common thread is storytelling backed by documented supply. Flagship-level events — from Cartier’s travelling exhibitions to Van Cleef & Arpels’ patrimony shows — reinforce design DNA and support secondary-market values for older, signed pieces. That cohesion supports the investability of jewellery. When a maison actively archives, exhibits and re-issues motifs, it deepens the pool of future bidders.
The flip side is cyclicality among aspirational consumers. Luxury growth slowed in 2023 and 2024 as inflation and higher rates weighed on US entry-luxury demand, China’s recovery proved patchy and Europe normalised after tourist rebounds. Jewels at the high end remained relatively insulated, but mid-market discretionary spend cooled, weighing on contemporary collections and commercial diamonds. This dispersion echoes the auction bifurcation. Investors should, therefore, focus on the segments that brands themselves lean into: high jewellery, icons with a long runway and period pieces that maisons continue to celebrate in exhibitions and books.
Not all jewellery are investments
Is brand equity alone enough to power through the future? No. It must be matched with product discipline — fewer, better stones with elite lab documentation, clean design codes and clear provenance — and with transparency on sourcing as younger buyers scrutinise ESG claims.
Signed period jewellery with untouched mounts, complete boxes and papers and top-tier lab reports for coloured stones are likely to keep outperforming, while modern commercial diamond lines without distinctive design or provenance will remain exposed to lab-grown substitution.
For investors weighing jewellery against blue-chip stocks, the thesis is straightforward. Equities compound through earnings, buybacks and dividends. Jewellery compounds through scarcity, cultural relevance and brand stewardship. It carries negative yield once storage and insurance are counted, and liquidity is seasonal, not continuous.
Gold’s run provides a helpful tailwind. As long as central banks are net buyers and real yields remain contained, the metal’s underpin supports intrinsic value in heavy gold jewels from Italian mid-century makers and in Art Deco platinum-and-diamond pieces, where metal value is a non-trivial share of cost.
Gems may sparkle, but in this market, all that glitters is indeed gold. When married to provenance and design, that glitter can convert into durable value at auction, giving jewellery a credible shot at matching or beating bluechip returns over long horizons for investors who can tolerate illiquidity and do the work on quality.
