Shopping for Tanzanite

[harmaki]

Has anyone bought any tanzanite in St. Thomas or any of the other islands? We're going on the Eastern cruise next Easter and want to do some jewelry shopping. I've heard that the tanzanite mines are getting depleted and its becoming rare. Would I get a good deal there? Should I start saving?

 

[wovenwonder]

My daughter purchased a very tiny stone in a ring on St. Maarten and it was $150 -- the stone was the smallest that they had.

 

[KandK]

We traveled on the Golden Princess last December and went to Majesty Jewlers on St Martin. We requested a personal letter of recommendation from the ship and got an additional discount on the ring that we bought. We also checked out some of the other shops but found it to be the best. My wife loves the ring. We are sailing on the Magic next Feb. our first with DCL, so I do not know if there is a similar program with Disney.

PS We are new to this source of great information and still getting use to the short forms.

 

[Laurajean1014]

I have alot of tanzanite pieces. First, before buying, know the quality of what you want to purchase. Tanzanite can be tricky to purchase if you are not familiar with the stone.

It is my favorite stone in all of "jewel land." So, I have done alot of research on the gem. The more I know, the more tanzanite I possess.

Most of my purchases came from NYC. England has the most exquisite pieces that I have ever seen. The Carribbean pieces can be cloudy.

In St. Maartin last year, I was interested in a 2.5 tanzanite and 1 carat diamond yellow gold ring. They wanted $5500 for the piece. If you price it out by tcwt it equals over $1500 a carat! Way too much for the stone. I got them down to $4200 or about $1200 per carat. I walked out.

In NYC, I purchased a 3 carat pear shaped tanzanite with 2 carats of baggettes surrounding it in white gold. My price was less than $500 per carat and when I went to appraise it (from another jeweler, out of state), it was appraised for $9300!

The appraiser loved the stone and thought it was beautifully set! She often tells me that I pick up some very high end quality pieces!

Buy with confidence and lots of knowledge! Do your homework! And when you buy it, wear it! That's why you bought it!

JMHO! L