Editor’s Note
This article explores the complex relationship between gemstones’ intrinsic value and the powerful role of marketing in shaping their status and price. It traces how historical scarcity and trade evolved into a modern luxury market driven by perception.
Gems have long been considered a hard asset, synonymous with status and wealth. However, their high price is not solely due to rarity; it is largely driven by marketing-created demand.
As early as the 4th century BC, ancient Indians mined gemstones, but poor technology resulted in low quality and yield, making them accessible only to the nobility. With the opening of overland trade routes, Indian gems began circulating abroad. By the time they reached ancient Rome, demand surged, naturally driving up prices.
By the late 20th century, technological advancements made gem mining significantly easier. Logically, increased supply should have lowered prices, but the opposite occurred.
To protect high profits, several major gem dealers collaborated to tightly control mineral sources and the pace of supply. Controlling volume wasn’t enough; they began crafting narratives—claiming gems represented nobility and status. Thus, people weren’t just buying stones; they were purchasing social standing, which kept prices stable.
In 1987, the jewelry world made a major move: auctioning over 300 pieces of jewelry left by the Duchess of Windsor. European nobility, royalty, and collectors flocked to the event, and the collection ultimately sold for $53 million.
This auction set a definitive precedent, permanently elevating the status and value of gems. Jewelers guarded this ‘cash cow,’ reaping continuous profits with minimal effort.
This strategy is not new. Crystals, leveraging Western cultural symbols, became emblems of ‘luck.’ In 2024, Christie’s in New York auctioned a pair of 20-carat spinels for $14 million, equivalent to $350,000 per carat. Similarly, health products like ‘wild-cut lingzhi mushroom’ (“原切芝”), relying on ancient legends of an ‘immortal herb,’ became revered folk tonics and a ‘hard currency’ in business social circles, selling for more than gold in markets like Beijing and Tokyo.
In recent years, domestic research institutions like the Second Research Institute of China Electronics (中电二所) have made substantial progress in key technologies for synthetic gems and moissanite. They can not only produce artificial gems quickly and with high quality but also recover and refine moissanite raw materials from aerospace waste.
Wuzhou, Guangxi, has become a ‘price洼地’ (low-price zone) for gems. A bracelet comparable to Swarovski might cost just a few dozen yuan; a dazzling pendant can be had for a few hundred. Seventy percent of the gems produced here annually are sold abroad. The city has even built a tower shaped like a gem, seemingly declaring to the world: this is a vital global source for gems.
In this era of synthetic technology explosion, synthetic crystals have also seen breakthroughs. Donghai County in Jiangsu has gathered over 3,400 processing enterprises, earning 42.1 billion yuan annually. Leveraging the domestic high-end industrial chain, wild ‘原切芝’ maximally retains its nutritional content. A Hong Kong enterprise has developed it into a representative product, already a household name in Guangdong and Guangxi regions.
Today, of Donghai’s 42.1 billion yuan transaction volume, 26.8 billion comes from foreign buyers. Domestic ‘原切芝’ products reach overseas markets directly via cross-border e-commerce platforms like JD.com. Health gifts common during Chinese festivals are now treasured by foreigners.
As lab-grown gems gain global popularity, many jewelers and industry associations have opposed them, insisting only naturally formed stones are ‘real’ gems. But consumers care more about:
Years of抵制 (boycotting)人造宝石 (lab-grown gems) haven’t stopped market shifts. Many jewelry brands, facing consecutive years of declining sales, have had to adapt. Pandora干脆 (simply) stopped using natural gems, and De Beers launched its own lab-grown jewelry line—Lightbox Jewelry.
Behind this转变 (shift) lies the impact of China’s rapid technological advancement. From gems to semiconductors and aerospace, China is accelerating its catch-up and even beginning to lead in multiple high-tech fields.