Stone Guide
Aquamarine
Origin: Brazil, Mozambique, Madagascar, Pakistan
What Makes It Special
Aquamarine brings an icy, crystalline elegance to jewelry. It's a beryl (the same gem family as emerald), but unlike emeralds, it naturally grows in large, wonderfully clean crystals colored by iron. The premier grades—the deeply saturated 'Santa Maria' from Brazil, or 'Santa Maria Africana' from Mozambique—are breathtaking. I particularly love seeing estate aquamarines resting gracefully in geometric Art Deco platinum settings.
Required Documentation
Lab reports are generally only requested for exceptionally large modern loose stones to confirm natural beryl origin. Estate aquamarines usually rely on visual grading and the dealer's eye.
Price Guide 2026
⚠️ Almost all aquamarines are routinely heat-treated to remove greenish modifiers and improve the blue color. This is a fully accepted and disclosed trade practice.
Notable Auction Records
Significant Art Deco Aquamarine Pieces
Christie's/Sotheby's
Heavily reliant on the signature and provenance
Value driven by the jewel format rather than raw carat weight
Dealer's Notes
Color saturation is everything. The deeper and purer the blue sky/ocean color without grey tones, the exponentially higher the value.
Unlike emeralds, expect your aquamarine to be entirely 'eye-clean'. There is no reason to compromise on clarity here.
Large clean stones are readily available and quite affordable compared to an equivalent size in sapphire.
Don't shy away from Art Deco estate settings. The geometric lapidary styles popular in the 1920s matched aquamarine's refractive properties perfectly.
If someone offers an 'unheated' aquamarine stringently, know that heat treatment is standard practice and extremely difficult to prove conclusively. Don't pay an oversized premium for it.
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