The BriteCo Jewelry, Diamond & Watch Price Index 2026

Understanding the numbers

Every dollar figure in this report is one of two measurements: sales price and appraised value (replacement value). Sales price is an estimate of what a piece sold for, based on recorded sales matched by characteristics such as year, category, diamond origin, and watch brand. Appraised value is the insurance replacement value, which is how jewelry appraisals work. The appraiser sets what replacing the piece at retail would cost, and that figure is separate from the purchase price, resale value, or cash value.

Appraised value typically exceeds sales price because it estimates the retail cost of replacing the item, not the amount originally paid. The two can differ by thousands of dollars, and every comparison depends on which measurement a chart uses, replacement cost vs selling price. Each chart states its measurement directly under its title.

Engagement rings

In 2025, the median engagement ring had a sales price of $6,939 and a median appraised value of $9,676, the headline numbers of this engagement ring market report. A natural diamond engagement ring had a median sales price of $12,961 in 2025, while a lab-grown ring had a median sales price of $4,557.

Several changes moved together over these years: lab-grown engagement ring adoption kept climbing, lab-grown prices kept falling, center stones got larger, shapes and styles shifted, metal preferences moved, and proposals remained seasonal. The changes occurred alongside one another, and the market is changing in product mix as well as in overall price.

From January through June 2026, lab-grown diamonds appeared in 51% of newly appraised engagement rings. Round remained the most popular engagement ring shape in 2025, with oval the leading alternative, and solitaires led the setting styles. Yellow gold remained the most common engagement ring metal at 37%, with white gold at 35%. The median engagement ring diamond size reached 2.0 carats in 2025, up from 1.01 carats in 2019.

Engagement ring seasonality is steady in the complete-year data. December is the peak month for new engagement rings, at 10.4% of the year's rings, while February is the quietest at 6.5%. The monthly pattern holds from year to year, tracked in the seasonality chart below.

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Lab-grown vs natural diamonds

Lab-grown diamond adoption has expanded well beyond engagement rings into earrings, wedding bands, necklaces, pendants, and other rings, and it keeps rising in every category. Price moved in the opposite direction. In 2025, the median natural diamond price per carat for engagement rings was $8,428, compared with $2,057 for lab-grown diamonds. Natural and lab-grown diamonds now operate at substantially different price levels, and the charts below track natural diamond market trends and lab-grown diamond price trends separately.

Lab diamond demand has risen fastest outside the ring. Earrings went from 6% lab-grown in 2019 to 39% in 2025, the steepest climb among these categories. The comparison goes by several names, including lab-created vs mined diamonds, and every version of it shows the same two moves in this data, with adoption up and prices down.

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Fancy colored diamonds & gemstones

Fancy colored diamonds and colored gemstones are two different product groups, and the two are not interchangeable. Fancy colored diamonds are diamonds with natural color, such as yellow, pink, blue, black, or brown. Yellow leads the fancy colored diamonds in this data, and colored diamond market trends shift the mix from year to year. Natural colored diamonds are graded on two separate measurements, with color naming the hue and intensity grading how strong that color is.

Colored gemstones are separate materials, such as sapphire, emerald, ruby, and aquamarine. In the gemstone jewelry market these appraisals cover, sapphire is the most common type, and moissanite grew from 6% of colored gemstone jewelry in 2019 to 11% in 2025.

Download the fancy colored diamond and gemstone data (CSV)

Beyond the ring

This section compares fine jewelry market trends across the major categories outside the engagement ring market. It covers anniversary bands, bracelets, earrings, eternity bands, necklaces, other rings, pendants, and wedding bands, and it tracks the same measurements for each of them, from sales price and appraised value to lab-grown adoption, center-stone size, metal preference, and seasonality.

The categories hold very different products. Earrings range from diamond stud earrings to hoops, bracelets include tennis bracelets, and the rings outside the engagement category span diamond eternity bands, anniversary rings, and fashion rings. Necklaces and pendants run from plain chains to diamond necklaces and diamond pendants. Because the products differ this much, a higher median reflects the pieces appraised in a category rather than a ranking of value. Across the gift categories in the complete-year data, December is the strongest month for jewelry shopping.

Wedding bands had the highest median sales price of these categories in 2025, at $7,252, while pendants ran $3,767. Wedding bands also posted the largest sales price increase of the group, with the median up from $4,297 in 2019.

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Metals

This section tracks the metals across every jewelry category in the report, from the three gold colors to platinum and the stamped purity grades. In 2025, yellow gold represented 39% of jewelry pieces, narrowly exceeding white gold at 38%. Rose gold held 3.3% of settings. Platinum grew from 11% of settings in 2019 to 16% in 2025, the largest move in the platinum jewelry market this data shows.

The charts track two separate measurements of jewelry metal popularity. Metal color covers yellow gold, white gold, and rose gold. Metal purity is the stamped grade, where the 14K vs 18K gold split accounts for most graded fine jewelry, with 10K and platinum grades behind. The purity chart covers only pieces with a recorded grade, a smaller group than the metal charts.

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Watches

The median watch sales price was $8,442 in 2025, against a median appraised value of $11,000. The gap between those two measurements depends heavily on brand. Across BriteCo appraisal data from 2019 through June 2026, Rolex watches had a median sales price of $10,081 and a median appraised value of $13,900. Collectible watch values follow the same pattern. Collector brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Audemars Piguet sell well below their replacement value, while mainstream brands such as Omega, Cartier, and TAG Heuer sell close to it.

Rolex is the most appraised brand in this watch market report, and brand frequency reflects BriteCo appraisals rather than worldwide market share. The charts cover brand distribution, brand-level prices, movement type, case material, and complications, together a view of luxury watch industry trends and a luxury watch price analysis drawn from real appraisals.