ALT/FNDATA · Market Report
Q1 2025 Report: The Secondary Market for Fine Jewelry & Gems
Auction-realized prices and the luxury-equity backdrop
A quiet quarter between the Geneva flagships: the regional and London books carried the period, diamonds anchored the value, and the market held its level like-for-like as the listed luxury majors split between a January rally and a spring de-rating.
The headline
The correction in three numbers
$20.0M
Q1 2025 auction value
Across 10,857 sold lots; like-for-like value +8% vs 2024 (gross −26%)
$324,324
Top lot at Christie's London
A diamond ring; the March sale carried the quarter
$10.2M
Diamond value
Diamonds anchored the quarter, ahead of $1.5M of sapphires
Auction-realized prices: what fine jewelry and gemstones actually sold for at the hammer, not asking prices. · 10M+ auction results · 100+ houses.
Key findings
What the quarter told us
- A quiet quarter between the Geneva flagships, read most cleanly like-for-like: at the 19 houses present in both years, value held +8% (to $16.7M). The gross figure, $20.0M, fell 26% against a Q1 2024 that carried an unusually strong estate sale.
- The first quarter has no Geneva marquee sale, so the regional and London books carry it. March alone cleared roughly $14.1M, about 70% of the quarter.
- Christie's and Bonhams led, with Christie's London topped by a $324,324 diamond ring and a Graff colored-diamond bracelet at $308,108.
- Diamonds anchored the quarter at roughly $10.2M, with sapphires ($1.5M), pearls ($1.0M) and rubies ($0.7M) supplying the colored-stone interest below the top.
- The year-over-year gross decline is a base effect, not a market drop: Q1 2024 was lifted by a single estate sale that cleared multiple seven-figure Cartier and signed pieces, absent from the Q1 2025 calendar.
- The public markets split. A January relief rally lifted Richemont (+11%), the closest listed proxy for fine jewelry, before a spring de-rating sent LVMH (−10%) and Kering (−20%) lower; the jewellery maisons remained the most resilient corner of the complex.
Year-over-year
Q1 2024 vs. Q1 2025
Q1 2024 vs. Q1 2025: sold fine-jewelry and gem lots at auction (like-for-like = the 19 houses present in both quarters)
| Metric | Q1 2024 | Q1 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sold auction lots | 10,212 | 10,857 | +6% |
| Total value (USD) | $27.1M | $20.0M | −26% |
| Like-for-like value | $15.5M | $16.7M | +8% |
| Top marquee lot | $1.24M | $324,324 | see note |
The divergence
The first quarter split between a January rally that lifted Richemont (+11%) and a spring de-rating in LVMH (−10%) and Kering (−20%). Through it, the auction jewelry market held its level like-for-like (+8%), the jewellery maisons the most resilient corner of the complex.
Source: Yahoo Finance closing prices (31 Dec 2024 to 31 Mar 2025); ALT/FNDATA auction value.
The outlook
Three trends that will define the year
Read the first quarter like-for-like
With no Geneva flagship, the first quarter is a thin, regional book whose gross figures swing on house coverage and the odd estate sale. The like-for-like read is the signal; in 2025 it held +8%.
Diamonds anchor the quiet quarter
Absent a marquee colored stone, the value sits in well-made white-diamond rings and earrings. The first quarter is the diamond-led, regional stretch of the jewelry calendar.
Jewellery is the resilient luxury category
Even as the listed majors split and then de-rated through the spring, the jewellery maisons kept compounding. Hard, intrinsic value is the defensive core of the luxury complex, a theme that ran through all of 2025.
“A quiet, diamond-led quarter that held its level where it counts: between the Geneva flagships, the jewelry market kept its footing as the listed majors began to turn.”
Members only
Read the full report
The headline data above is free to cite. The full report is part of ALT/FNDATA Membership, which includes every quarterly market report and the Visual Analytics Hub. Inside this report:
- The full month-by-month auction breakdown (January to March)
- The luxury-equity backdrop: the January rally and the spring de-rating
- What the value was made of: diamonds and colored stones
- Methodology and how to cite the data
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Source: ALT/FNDATA, “Q1 2025 Report: The Secondary Market for Fine Jewelry & Gems” (June 2026). Based on auction-realized prices for fine jewelry and gemstones cleared at the auction houses ALT/FNDATA tracks, with public-market context from Q1 2025 luxury-equity performance. © 2026 ALT/FNDATA · altfndata.com/reports/jewelry-gems-market-report-q1-2025