Much of the amethyst that is polished is known as chevron or banded amethyst. Polished and tumbled amethyst is popular for decorative, ornamental and jewelry purposes.
Retail pricing will be some multiple of that. Wholesale pricing for large quantity purchases directly from the mines might range anywhere from $10/kg to $100+/kg depending on the grade. When amethyst clusters and geodes are sold wholesale by the mines, these characteristics are typically combined together to grade the material (A, B, C, D, etc) and grades are sold by weight. Unique and attractive formations inside of the geodes such as stalactites or calcite formations can potentially make them more valuable. Therefore the chipping or damage to the individual crystals will affect price.īecause this amethyst is being sold for decoration, just generally how nice it looks is going to impact the pricing. Typically larger crystals are more valuable than smaller druzy ones.Ĭrystals often become chipped during extraction or preparation of the geodes. The size of the individual crystals on clusters and in geodes can affect the value. When amethyst crystals, clusters and geodes are sold wholesale by the mines in Brazil and Uruguay, they are typically sold by weight. The amethyst from Uruguay tends to be significantly darker than the amethyst mined in Brazil and thus significantly more expensive.Īmethyst geodes are frequently found in large sizes, so price of geodes and clusters tend to increase in linear fashion with size, rather than exponentially. The darkest amethyst clusters will sell for about 3-5 times the price of the lighter colored material. Geodes up to a foot across are not particularly rare, though single geodes up to 20 feet across have been found and are considered rare.Ī three foot wide amethyst geode from the mines in Artigas, Uruguay.Īs with amethyst gemstones color plays a very significant role in price with darker amethyst being worth much more. These two countries alone account for about 5,000 tons of amethyst production annually, the bulk used for decorative purposes. The bulk of these larger amethyst clusters used for decoration are mined in Brazil and Uruguay from very extensive basalt flows. Larger crystal clusters and geodes are relatively common and can be quite stunning. “Siberian” amethyst prices can go up substantially from there.Īmethyst is extremely popular for decorative and ornamental purposes.
Typically with amethyst, the labor that goes into faceting the stone is going to represent the bulk of the price of the cut gemstone.įor some price context, faceted amethyst gemstones from India may sell for as little as $2 per carat where some of the material with better color from brazil will sell for $5-10/caret. This is because unlike those other gemstones, amethyst is typically found as larger crystals so the size of the raw material isn’t a constraining factor. Unlike diamonds and rubies where gemstones get exponentially more expensive the larger they are, the price of amethyst gemstones increases gradually with size.
Amethyst from Brazil faceted into gemstones for jewelry.
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