Buy Taaffeite: Occurrence, Value & Price – Investment Gemstone

Taaffeite is one of the rarer known gemstones, and you will often see it on lists of the world’s most exotic stones, along with minerals like painite, musgravite, and grandidierite. Before its discovery, most of these stones were mistaken for spinel. It remains one of the rarest gem minerals in the world and its certain identification remains difficult.

Gemstone Taaffeit & Occurrence

Taaffeite is known as colorless, purple, red, green or blue. The most common colors are fairly unsaturated mauve and lavender. Deeper reds and purples, colored by traces of chromium and iron, are extremely rare. The largest taaffeite to hit the market was a 33 carat stone sold at auction in Hong Kong in 1999.

The source of the taaffeite was unknown for a long time. Eventually small fragments were found in Sri Lanka and southern Tanzania. Material also came from Myanmar, and some low-grade taaffite was found in China and Russia.

• Colour: colourless, mauve, lavender, violet, red, green or blue
• Largest carat: 33 carat
• Origin: Sri Lanka, Southern Tanzania, Myanmar, China, Russia

Taaffeit Buy: Value & Price

The question of how expensive a gemstone is, can not be answered in a general way. The price of minerals and gemstones results from the interaction of various factors – namely color, purity, weight and cut.

Light pink and dark purple taaffeite are priced from about $800 to $2,500 per carat. Finer colors with higher saturation can cost as much as $5,500 to $7,500 per carat, while stones with intense color that are clean inside can sell for as much as $15,000 per carat. A diamond, by comparison, costs about $4,500 to $6,000 per carat. Most buyers invest in jewelry with Taaffeit stones because the value of the gemstone increases due to its rarity.

The purity of minerals is essential, especially for stones with translucent transparency. Inclusions of other minerals, gases, liquids or growth lines have a disturbing effect on the brilliance and play with light in the crystal. Such defects can also be repaired with firing, so that a flawless quality exists.

• Colour, purity, weight and cut
• Average price: $3,500
• Prices from $800 to $15,000
• Errors can be corrected by burning