New York jewelry designer Nicholas Varney desperately wants to get his hands
on hot-pink spinel gems, a breathtaking Burmese stone that is often mistaken for
a ruby. Supply, though, is erratic because the scarce spinels must be smuggled
out of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, by gem traffickers, who risk their
lives transporting them out of that volatile country into Thailand. Anxious
dealers await those stones on the other side of the border, prepared to snatch
them up and resell them to the highest bidder. | | “SEA ANEMONE” BROOCH set with spinel, mandarin garnet, imperial topaz and
rhodolite garnets. |
The cost of a high-quality
spinel today will range anywhere from double to 10 times that of five years ago.
A group of elite jewelers who are vying for the little-known gem have helped
raise the asking price to anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 a carat for an
exceptional quality spinel. Varney predicts prices will continue to swell as
more people acquaint themselves with the beauty and rarity of the gem, and the
current U.S. sanctions against Myanmar’s military regime will only make the
stone more rare and, therefore, more valuable. “Luxury is no longer
about the size of a stone,” says Varney, who is known for his artistic use of
gems. “My clients already have the ubiquitous diamonds, rubies and sapphires,
and they come to me for something unusual that their friends don’t have.” As an
alternative to a more predictable diamond version, Varney created a ring for one
of his discriminating clients that had an extraordinary 14-carat red spinel at
the center, framed with pavé orange spinel and white and yellow diamond
accents. Another of Varney’s one-of-a-kind treasures is an $80,000 ring with
a mesmerizing 34-carat green tsavorite garnet, a stone rarely found in sizes
larger than 10 carats. “It’s the definition of what a gemstone should be,” says
the designer. “Tsavorite is interesting and rare.” The stone, which varies in
spectrum from a pastel spring green to a rich forest green, has the translucent
sparkle of an emerald but is tougher and less prone to crack. Tsavorites were
first discovered in 1968 near Tsavo National Park in Kenya, where small
quantities of this stone continue to be unearthed, as they are in Tanzania.
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