How to buy fancy jewellery

Ah, the holidays. It’s the perfect time to buy something significant for a special person — you know, show them you care. And it’s the perfect time to freak out about how, exactly, to do it.

Jewellery is an intensely personal way to express style, even for men. (Don’t try to tempt your tweed-wearing friend with an Apple Watch — he will recoil.)  If you’ve got someone in your life with even the barest shred of personal style, approach the endeavour with eyes wide open and ears curled toward every hint of preferences that float your way.

It is possible to win this challenge. It just takes some effort. 

The main thing is to know what you don’t know. So I met Fiona Druckenmiller at her Upper East Side shop to seek her best advice for buying gemstones. She’s got credibility: As one-half of the multibillion-dollar Druckenmiller fortune, she presides over F D Gallery, a six-story townhouse full treasures from the likes of Société Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels Inc., JAR, Verdura, Hemmerle, and Viren Bhagat. Walk through the heavy, double-door portal and you’ll find yourself amid glittering items worth hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece. Her clients range from Upper East Side doyennes and French financiers to young, Asian entrepreneurs and Italian barons.

Druckenmiller wants to make it clear: “Just because you’ve bought an engagement ring doesn’t mean you know how to buy gemstones.” It’s solid advice, and a great place to start. Here’s what else you need to know if you are in the market for some seriously fancy jewellery.

You can’t eyeball quality

Do you know the difference between heated and unheated rubies? Can you spot an emerald that has been oiled, vs. one that contains no oil? Probably not. But those enhancements greatly affect the value of stones.
 

“People have been heating stones for hundreds of years to enhance the colour,” Druckenmiller says. “But a Burma ruby that is unheated is going to be worth 10 or 20 times as much as a heated ruby from Africa.”

As for emeralds, many have little fissures in them, because emerald can be brittle. Jewellers often use oil to make the cracks less visible. So an emerald with no oil will naturally be more valuable than one that has been altered.

“It’s not something you can look at and tell,” says Druckenmiller. “People just don’t know. It’s not that they’re wrong to buy them. It’s just inexperience.”

The best way to find out what kind of quality you’re dealing with is to inquire, simply and directly. Question the seller as to where the jewel originated and how it has been treated. Ask to see the certification papers. And bring along an expert, or a well-trained friend, to act as backup and offer a second opinion.

At auctions, be persistent

If you do take your chances at public auctions and sales, be prepared to go up against dealers, retailers, and brand-name houses such as Cartier and Van Cleef, which often buy back important estate- and museum-quality jewellery to keep in their archives and exhibit worldwide. Why wouldn’t they? The supply of significant jewels and gemstones dwindles every year, thanks to inevitable loss, irreparable damage, and collectors who squirrel items into private coffers.

The major gem auctions — think Sotheby’s, Phillips, Bonhams, Christie’s — typically start in November in Geneva and run through December. Industry insiders who attend them “will be very involved” in the first group of auctions, Druckenmiller says. Then they retreat.

“When it gets to be a week before Christmas, they have likely already spent their money or they have gone on to other things — so you can find bargains,” she says. “This will even happen just at the later end of night sales, when they are dropping out, or their attention wanders. But you have to be lucky. It’s a matter of being really vigilant.”

Refuse to accept old or inferior certificates of authenticity

When you talk to a dealer or retailer, always request certificates of authenticity for any gem.

Look to ensure that the lab certification is from a trusted source (the Gemology Institute of America is the most reputable). GIA’s certification confirms the geographic origin, grade, and quality of stones after the institute has determined an item’s gemological identity, alterations, and origin. The place where a gem originated is important because certain countries, regions, and mines are renowned for the quality of their stones.