Exceptional stones from Afghanistan
Ariana Precious Stones supplies wholesale parcels and exceptional single stones — Panjshir emerald, Jegdalek ruby and Nuristan tourmaline. Owned at source, guaranteed by province, rough or cut, and delivered by hand. Large organisations and large deals.
Capability
That is not a slogan, it is what owning the material at source actually buys you. We are not selecting from somebody else’s parcel, so we are not limited to what they chose to keep back — and we are not limited in scale either.
From clean commercial goods a workshop can buy by the dozen, up to single collector stones that come out of the ground once a season.
Single stones from commercial weights up to museum pieces. Giant stones do come out of these valleys — rarely, but they come out, and when they do we see them first.
We cut our own, so shape is a decision rather than a constraint. Send a template and we will work the rough to it.
Wholesale lots by weight, sized to whatever you actually run. We supply by the kilo — hundreds of thousands of carats where the material allows — and we have never yet been asked for a parcel we could not fill. Tell us the tonnage and we will tell you the season it takes.
The house
Most Afghan stones reach the market having passed through four or five hands, each one blurring where the stone came from and what was done to it. We removed those hands.
Ariana Precious Stones holds its own material at source in the Panjshir, Nuristan and Kunar valleys, moves it under our own control, and presents it to buyers with the provenance intact. What you are told about a stone is what we ourselves witnessed — not what a broker three steps upstream chose to pass on.
The result is a register of goods that is smaller than a wholesaler's and considerably more certain. We would rather show you forty stones we can account for completely than four hundred we cannot.
The collections
Afghanistan produces two of the most collectable coloured stones on earth within a hundred kilometres of each other. We work both, and we work them separately.
The cool, slightly bluish green that separates Panjshir from Colombian and Zambian material. Bright, crystalline, and typically clean for the species.
Explore emeraldsDeep blue tourmaline from the pegmatites of Nuristan — the darker, inkier end of the blue range, and increasingly hard to find in size.
Explore indicoliteThe luminous blue-green that made Afghan tourmaline collectable in its own right. Vivid in daylight, and unmistakable beside any other blue stone.
Explore lagoonWho we work with
Mining houses, wholesalers, manufacturers, auction houses, institutions and established dealers — and private buyers who are buying at that level. What matters is the size of the deal, not the letterhead. We trade in wholesale lots and exceptional single stones, and we deliver by hand, never by carrier.
We do not take small orders. If you need one or two modest stones, a retail jeweller will serve you far better than we will — and we will tell you so rather than waste your afternoon. Come to us when the figure is serious and we will give you our full attention.
Rough or cut
Some clients want the crystal as it came out of the ground. Some want it finished to a drawing. We are set up for both, and neither is a sideline.
Graded, sorted parcels straight from the valleys — Panjshir emerald rough and Nuristan & Kunar tourmaline rough, priced by parcel with our own honest read on likely yield rather than an optimistic one. Specimen and museum-grade crystals are set aside intact rather than cut.
Finished to your specification, or cut to the stone where the rough asks for it. We cut our own material, so shape is a decision rather than a constraint — and matched suites can be taken from a single crystal, which is the only reliable way to hold colour across a set.
The benches
This is not a logistical footnote. It is why we can quote competitively on a production parcel and still finish a museum emerald to Antwerp standards — and why nothing needs to be improved in a furnace afterwards.
Precision work and single stones. Five centuries of cutting tradition in one square mile, and where our high-value emerald and collector tourmaline are finished.
At the source. Rough is opened and worked within a day’s drive of the valleys, which shortens the chain further and keeps skilled work in the country the stones come out of.
Wuzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Wuzhou cuts more coloured stone by volume than anywhere on earth; Guangzhou and Shenzhen carry the manufacturing behind it. Matched lines, repeating production orders and calibrated goods at scale — without the stone ever changing owner along the way.
Chanthaburi. The town has cut and graded more ruby and sapphire than anywhere on earth, and the eye there for a red is unmatched. We use its cutting benches and its graders — not its burners. Nothing of ours goes near a furnace.
Jaipur. The largest coloured-stone cutting centre on earth, and the deepest bench of calibrated-goods capacity anywhere. Where a repeating order runs to thousands of matched pieces, this is where it is filled.
Why our prices hold
Every hand a stone passes through takes a margin and blurs where it came from. We are Afghan, we are known in the valleys, and we buy directly from the people who dig. That is the whole of the advantage — and it is not something a foreign buyer can replicate by flying in for a week.
This ground has been worked by our family for longer than the company has existed, and the people who dig it are people we grew up among. That is what puts us at the front of the queue when a pocket opens. An Afghan house, operating in Dari and Pashto, with standing where it matters — not a stranger with a translator and a flight home.
Our people are in the valley through the working season, assessing rough on site as it comes out rather than after it has been picked over. First sight is a relationship built over years; it cannot be bought at the point of sale.
From the valley to your hands under our own control, correctly declared at every border it crosses. No broker chain means no stacked margins — and it is also why we can still tell you which pocket a stone came out of.
How we grade
Two claims that are easy to make and easy to check. Here is what they mean technically, and why one of them is harder than it sounds.
The trade sorts coloured stones into three clarity types. Type I is usually free of eye-visible inclusions — aquamarine, morganite, kunzite. Type II is usually included: ruby, tourmaline, spinel, garnet. Type III is almost always included, and emerald is the type specimen for it.
That classification is why almost all commercial emerald is oiled: the fractures are there, and oil hides them. An eye-clean Type III stone that has never seen oil is not a better version of the same thing. It is a different category.
Nothing. No heat, no oil, no resin or fracture filling, no diffusion, no irradiation, no dye, no glass residue. Not on emerald, not on ruby, not on tourmaline.
This costs us material — a great deal of rough that others would improve, we simply do not sell. What it buys you is a stone that tests clean at any laboratory in the world, holds its value under later scrutiny, and cannot be re-graded downward when the oil dries out in fifteen years.
Optical and physical constants for the three species we hold. These are properties of the material, not claims about our stock — any laboratory will measure the same figures.
| Species | Refractive index | Birefringence | Specific gravity | Mohs | Clarity type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emerald (beryl) | 1.577–1.583 | 0.005–0.009 | 2.67–2.78 | 7.5–8 | Type III |
| Ruby (corundum) | 1.762–1.770 | 0.008–0.010 | 3.97–4.05 | 9 | Type II |
| Tourmaline (elbaite) | 1.624–1.644 | 0.018–0.040 | 3.01–3.11 | 7–7.5 | Type II |
Corundum has a specific gravity around 4.00 against beryl’s 2.72. A 25 ct ruby and a 25 ct emerald are not the same size — the ruby is visibly smaller. Buyers working from carat figures alone get caught by this constantly.
Tourmaline is strongly pleochroic and its birefringence runs as high as 0.040. Colour down the c-axis is far deeper than across it, so a dark indicolite is cut with the table close to perpendicular to the axis to open it up, and a pale one the other way. Cut it wrong and you have wasted the crystal.
Marble-hosted corundum forms in a low-iron environment. Iron quenches fluorescence; without it the chromium fluoresces strongly red under ultraviolet and in daylight. It is the same reason Burmese ruby has the reputation it does, and it is a property of the geology, not of any treatment.
Origins
Three provinces in the north-east, all within the Hindu Kush. Each has its own geology, its own working season, and its own character in the finished stone.
Map shown for orientation only; not to scale.
Offices
Kabul buys it and clears it for export. From there it goes to you, to a cutting bench, or to Dubai. Amsterdam is where the company sits and where your invoice comes from. Nobody else touches it on the way.
Benches: Antwerp · Kabul · Wuzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen · Chanthaburi · Jaipur. Kabul is office and bench both.
Local times update live. The status dot is an indicative office-hours guide only — write at any hour and it reaches whichever desk is open.
The process
Six stages, each one documented. You can enter the process at any point — buy rough, buy cut, or commission from a specific parcel.
Our people are present in the valleys during the working season. Rough is assessed on site, parcelled by quality, and recorded against its origin before it leaves the province.
Every parcel is opened, weighed and graded under controlled light. Colour, clarity, and likely yield are assessed before a single stone is committed to the wheel.
We cut for colour and weight retention rather than to a template. Where a piece of rough wants to be a long emerald cut rather than a round, that is what it becomes. Stones are routed to whichever of the five benches we work with — Antwerp, Kabul, the Chinese workshops, Chanthaburi or Jaipur — suits the work, and you can also stop here and take the parcel rough. The finest single stones are cut by hand. Nothing goes near a furnace at any of them.
Certification is acquired on request, from whichever recognised laboratory you name — identification, origin opinion and confirmation that the material is untreated. We do not pad the price with reports nobody asked for, and we will not object to any laboratory you choose.
Goods are exported under correct declaration and cleared into the destination market with the paperwork your own compliance team will ask for.
We do not ship. A member of the house travels with the goods and places them in yours — your office, your vault or your bank. Nothing of ours goes into a courier network, and nothing changes hands without one of our people present.
Assurances
No heat, no oil, no resin, no fracture filling, no diffusion — on anything, ever. For emerald that is a genuinely uncommon position: the species is graded Type III, meaning it is almost always included and almost always clarity-enhanced. Ours is not. Every invoice states it.
We guarantee the provenance of every stone we sell. Panjshir, Nuristan, Kunar or Jegdalek — we name the province, not merely the country, we put it in writing on the invoice, and we will explain how we know. Where a laboratory origin opinion exists it is supplied with the stone. If we cannot stand behind an origin, we do not claim it and we price the stone accordingly.
Goods are hand-carried by our own people and handed over in person, insured for the whole journey. Every negotiation, viewing and settlement happens face to face, in a secure setting of our joint choosing. Title and risk are set out clearly on the invoice before anything moves.
Export declarations, invoices and provenance records are issued as a matter of course, structured for your own due-diligence and anti-money-laundering obligations.
Established trade clients may view stones on memo or receive high-resolution imaging and video first. We would rather you were certain than merely persuaded.
Quotes are given per carat, per stone and per lot, in the currency you settle in, with delivery and insurance itemised. No commission is added downstream — because there is no downstream.
Experience
Anyone can be shown a parcel. Knowing which stones in it are worth having is a different skill, and it is the one our clients are really paying for.
It is knowing which pocket in which valley throws the cool blue-green rather than the grey one. Reading a piece of rough and calling the yield before it goes near a wheel. Recognising when an “untreated” tourmaline has been quietly heated, or when a Panjshir emerald has been oiled a great deal more heavily than the seller is admitting. Knowing which season to buy in, and which to sit out entirely.
That judgement is why clients send us specifications rather than shopping lists. It is also why we will tell you when the stone you have described does not exist at the price you have in mind — which is information you can act on, unlike a quote you cannot trust.
The studio
Four tools built out of how we actually assess material — not decoration, but the questions every serious buyer asks us first.
See what a carat weight really looks like at true size on your own screen, calibrated to the millimetre against a bank card. Learn the Afghan colour range and which hues are genuinely scarce. Compare what a step cut does to a colour against what a brilliant cut does. Then write a specification precise enough for us to quote against.
Services
Much of our work is not a stone off a list. It is a manufacturer who needs a repeating monthly parcel, or an auction house that wants first refusal on the season's major stones.
We handle standing supply mandates, calibrated goods for production floors, graded rough parcels by weight, and first refusal on exceptional single stones. Where a client needs a stone certified by a particular laboratory, we arrange it before delivery.
Enquiries
Send a specification — species, colour, size range, quantity and budget — and we will reply with what we hold, what is coming, and an honest note on what will be difficult to find.
