Investment value has become an important term this year. And jewelers along Madison Avenue in New York report clients are arriving with the term in mind—and going straight for pieces priced above $100,000. Should you be looking to buy and/or invest, Tom Burstein, senior international jewelry director at Christie’s New York, suggests shopping for large, important, and rare diamonds and colored gemstones. These continue to achieve record prices at auction houses like Christie’s—compared with signed vintage and antique jewelry, which can be more subjective in the secondhand market. The diamond industry is projected to have steady if cautious growth in 2017, with demand outpacing supply growth, Bain & Company reports. And the overall jewelry industry is expected to grow about 5 percent each year through 2020, says another industry study. “We continue to see an extremely strong demand for large, high-quality white diamonds and rare colored diamonds, coupled with a scarcity of exceptional examples,” says François Graff, CEO of Graff Diamonds, who adds that there can be only so many big diamond discoveries left out there. “Which will inevitably lead to an increase in the value of these diamonds over time.”
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