IN THE VERY FIRST Big Survey back in 2007, we asked jewelers to list their best-selling colored gemstone. We should have known it would be sapphire, by a massive margin (it garnered more than 90% of the vote). So in 2014 we asked again but said “excluding sapphire” and the results were much closer, with ruby coming out top. It’s been five years since then and in the interim a lot of other gemstones seemed to be getting quite a deal of press including morganite, peridot and blue zircon, so it was time to ask again.
The winner though was once again ruby, be a comfortable margin, with more than 25 percent of the vote, followed by emerald with 14%. (See the chart). Next time we may have to ban all corundums to add a little more surprise to the mix.
The 2019 Big Survey was conducted in September and October and attracted responses from more than 800 American jewelers. Look out for all the results in the November issue of INSTORE.