5 Gemstones The Earth Ran Out Of (You Can Only Buy What Already Exists)

In the early 1880s a landslide in the Himalayas opened a hillside full of blue stones. Men dug for roughly seven years. Then it was empty — not thin, not expensive to work, empty — and every expedition since has come down with nothing. More than a century later one of those stones, just under 28 carats, sold at auction for about $6.7 million. $242,000 a carat. Not because it was the bluest sapphire in the world. Because the earth is not making any more, and everyone in that room knew it. There is rare, and then there is finished. Rare means there isn't much. Finished means there is a date, a place and a reason — and after that date, nothing has come out of the ground and nothing ever will. You can only buy what already exists. 💎 ONE PIECE OF EVIDENCE FIRST: the only gem-quality red beryl deposit on the planet is in the Wah Wah Mountains of Utah. In 2001 the mining company defaulted, and under state law the pits were filled in, graded, topsoiled and seeded with grass. The rarest gemstone in America is under a meadow. The Utah Geological Survey puts it at one red beryl crystal for every 150,000 diamonds. Five doors, told in order — from the one that closed before the United States existed to the one that closed in August 2012, while a shopping channel was still selling the stone by the strand. That last one is probably in your jewelry box. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is based on over 20 years of firsthand experience in the jewelry industry combined with extensive research into publicly available financial reports, SEC filings, brand earnings calls, material spot prices, and secondary market resale data from platforms including Chrono24, The RealReal, and major auction houses. Every production cost estimate and markup figure cited in this video is based on industry-standard calculations using current precious metal and gemstone wholesale pricing. FAIR USE NOTICE This video is made for educational and comm