Gemstones as an asset
Investing in colored gemstones: documented stones, custody and a fair exit
People buy fine rubies, sapphires and spinels to hold: they are rare and portable. Prices can fall as well as rise; what you can control is what you can prove about the stone and what it costs to sell. This page is about those two things. It is not investment advice.
IllustrationFirst
Not investment advice
Everystone does not give investment advice, does not promise returns and does not present stones as financial products. Gemstone prices can fall as well as rise, there is no reliable public index for them, and past prices say nothing dependable about future ones. If you are deciding how much of your money to put into stones, talk to an adviser who knows your situation.
Market language
What the trade means by “investment-grade”
There is no official standard. In market language the phrase usually means a stone that meets all of the following at once, with the paperwork to show it.
Top color for its kind
A vivid, saturated color with no brown or gray: a pure red ruby or spinel, a vivid blue sapphire.
No treatment, documented
An unheated ruby or sapphire, an untreated spinel, stated on a laboratory report rather than on a sales tag.
A lab-stated origin
Burma (Myanmar), Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Mozambique and other names matter only when a lab report states them.
Rare size
Fine quality in a size the market rarely sees: for ruby, often above two or three carats.
Documents that travel
Recent reports from recognized laboratories, matched to this stone, with a record of who has owned it.
Padparadscha sapphire comes up often in this context. It is among the rarest sapphires and the one where documentation matters most: labs apply the name within their own color criteria, and some test whether the color is stable, because certain stones fade.
Liquidity
The exit is where holders lose money
A gemstone has no exchange price, no ticker and no market maker. Selling one means finding a buyer for that particular stone, and the cost of finding them, the exit spread, is large: a dealer who buys to resell has to pay well below what an end buyer would, and at auction, as of October 2026, Christie's and Sotheby's add a 28% buyer's premium on the hammer price up to $2 million, while Sotheby's lists a standard seller's commission of 10%.
Any plan to hold a stone should start with how you would sell it, what that would cost and how long it might take. On Everystone the seller pays no commission under $10k while we launch and 5% from $10k, plus a one-time $20 listing fee for the lot; the buyer pays a 3–7% premium and a settlement fee of 3%, with the money held in between. That narrows the spread. It does not make a stone liquid: finding the right buyer can still take months.
Custody and documents
Hold it where it can be proven and sold
IllustrationA stone kept at home is hard to insure at full value, hard to sell without shipping it, and easy to swap. Custody changes that. In a free-zone vault in Bangkok, the vault holds the stone and is liable for it; the passport records what has been checked and reflects your title under Thai law, through a warehouse receipt (Civil and Commercial Code §775–796); and a stone in the vault can be sold without leaving it.
Custody, from $30k, costs 3.5% a year of documented value, all-in, after a one-time onboarding fee. Everystone is not the custodian, the vault is; we are responsible for the passport.
Risks
The risks, stated plainly
- Prices can fall. There is no reliable public index for colored stones, and you may get back less than you paid.
- Selling takes time. There may be no buyer at your price when you need one.
- Costs are high next to financial assets, and you pay them on the way in and on the way out.
- Laboratories can disagree on origin or treatment, and standards change; an older report can be read differently today.
- New treatments and synthetics keep appearing, and how a stone is described can change as detection catches up.
- Storage, insurance and new reports cost money every year, whatever the price does.
- Tax and import rules differ by country, and they change.
Where we fit
What Everystone does, and what it doesn't
We are a trust layer, not an investment product. We check the stone and its paperwork, keep the record in a passport, arrange custody in a free-zone vault in Bangkok, and settle the sale safely when you decide to sell. We don't predict prices, recommend what to buy or hold stones on our own account.
Questions people ask
Are gemstones a good investment?
We can't tell you, and we don't try: Everystone gives no investment advice. What we can say is what makes a stone easier to hold and to sell: a documented identity, origin and treatment, safe custody, and a known cost of exit. Prices of colored stones can fall as well as rise.
What makes a ruby or sapphire “investment-grade”?
There is no official standard. In trade language it means top color, no or minimal treatment, an origin stated by a lab, rare size, and recent reports from recognized laboratories that match the stone.
How do I sell a gemstone I bought to hold?
List it from your cabinet (a one-time $20 listing fee is paid when you list it; the desk confirms the payment and reviews the lot), it is shown to buyers who pass KYC, the buyer makes a protected payment, and you receive the price in full below $10k while we launch, less a 5% commission from $10k. A stone in custody can be sold without leaving the vault.
Is a padparadscha sapphire a good investment?
We don't give investment advice. Padparadscha is among the rarest sapphires and the one where documentation matters most: labs use their own color criteria for the name, and some test whether the color is stable. Any decision should start from a recent report on the stone itself.
Does Everystone guarantee the value of my stone?
No. The passport documents what the stone is and what has been checked, and its valuation history records what independent appraisals said, and when. None of it is a promise about a future price.
Start with what can be proven
Look at fully verified stones on the shop, or talk to the desk about verification and custody for a stone you are considering.