The world of precious gemstones has a lot of cool stuff and intresting facts. Many people think the BIG 4 gems (Diamonds, Rubies, Yellow Sapphire, Emeralds) are the most valuable gemstones, but there are tons of other gems out there that cost way more and are super rare, and people like them even more than the usual stone that carry a big name.
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Most Expensive Gemstones
Blue Diamond
$3.93 Million Per Carat
When something sells for $3.93 million per Carat, it’s bound to be at the top of the world’s priciest gemstones list. Blue diamonds lead the pack of valuable gems and are super rare. They get their blue colour from tiny bits of Boron. People first found blue diamonds in India and thought they were royal symbols. Later, essential people all over the world started loving blue diamonds like crazy. The most expensive one – the Oppenheimer Blue diamond – sold for a huge $57.5 million at Christie’s in 2016. It weighs about 14.62 carats and sits in top-notch Platinum.
Pink Diamond
$1.5 Million Per Carat
Pink diamonds are also super pricey stones. Scientists can’t agree on why they’re pink. They think it might be because of how the molecules get squished when the diamond forms. Some cheaper pink diamonds have a bit of orange, purple, and brown in them too. Back in 2017, someone bought the ‘Pink Star Diamond’ at a Sotheby’s auction for a whopping $71.2 million. This made it the most expensive diamond ever sold at an auction. It was massive weighing 59.6 carats.
Red Diamond
$1.3 Million Per Carat
Red diamonds are way more beautiful than most gemstones out there. They’re also the third priciest gem on our list. You can count the number of red diamond mines on one hand, and almost all of these diamonds weigh under a carat. People think a few red diamonds pop up each year, and nobody knows why they’re red. The Moussaieff Red Diamond is the most significant, rarest, and most expensive red diamond ever found. It weighs about 5.11 carats and is worth a whopping $20 million.
Emerald
$200,000 For Each Carat
Emeralds cost way less than diamonds. But some top-notch emeralds with a rare deep green colour can be worth more than super-expensive diamonds. For ages, kings and queens all over the world have wanted to own emerald stones. People think they’re pretty special. The best emeralds come from mines in Colombia, Zambia, and Brazil. The priciest emerald ever is the Rockefeller emerald. It weighs 18 carats, and someone bought it for a massive $5.51 million in 2017.
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Jadeite
$40,000 For Each Carat
Jadeite is one of the best picks for gem collectors. It’s on our list of the priciest gemstones for lots of reasons. First off, it’s the rarest type of Jade. Also, people use it to make impressive statues, fancy stuff, and different kinds of weapons. Old cultures like the Mayans and Aztecs thought jadeite was worth more than gold.
They used it to make sharp weapons and beautiful jewellery. The Hutton Mdivani necklace is the most expensive piece of Jadeite jewellery ever. Someone bought it at an auction in 2017 for a crazy $27.44 million. This necklace has about 27 Jadeite stones all strung together.
Painite
$60,000 For Each Carat
Painite got into the top 10 on our unique list of the world’s most valuable gems for one reason: three Painite stones were known until 2001. Not many folks realize that Painite is super rare as a type of borate. This incredible gem can cost up to $60000 for just one Carat. Painite got its name from a scientist who found this mineral back in 1957. Because Painite has rich red colours, people thought it was a Ruby stone at first. Myanmar is the only place we know that has the best quality Painite.
Serendibite
$20,000 Per Carat
Serendibite is one of the world’s rarest and prettiest gems, and Sri Lanka is its only known source. People first found it in a remote part of Sri Lanka. It comes in colours from dark blue-green to bright green-blue. It’s a super rare type of silica mineral, and Boron gives it its shimmering colour changes. The Ophir collection, a U.S.-based company, owns the priciest Serendibite stone. It’s worth $2.5 million and weighs a huge 140.76 carats.
Taaffeite
$35,000 Per Carat
According to official records, there are 50 Taaffeite gemstones known to exist. This makes them even more challenging to find than diamonds and emeralds. The name Taaffeite comes from Count Richard Taaffe, a well-known Irish gemologist who discovered it in 1945.
People often mix Taaffeite with ruby because of its deep red colour with purple solid shades. Later, experts labelled it as a spinel stone. The Guinness Book of World Records says that Miho Ozawa from Japan owns the biggest known Taaffeite gemstone, which weighs 5.36 carats.
Alexandrite
Named after Alexander 2, a Russian czar, this fancy gemstone is one of the top 4 in the world. The Alexandrite gem has the extraordinary ability to change colours in daylight or artificial light. The colour change happens because it has stuff like titanium, chromium, and iron that soak up light colours. The biggest Alexandrite in the world is the Saur Alexandrite. It weighs a massive 122,400 carats uncut and costs a ton. Another pricey Alexandrite sold at Christie’s in 2014 for $1.4 million, which is crazy expensive.
Musgravite
$40,000 Per Carat
People found Musgravite stone in 1967. It’s one of the prettiest and hardest-to-find gems out there, and it costs a ton. Its name comes from where they first saw it – the Musgraves ranges in South Australia. Besides Australia, tiny bits of Musgravite have also been shown in Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Greenland, and Antarctica. There’s not much Musgravite around, and one of the priciest ones got sold at Gem Rock Auctions. It weighed about 16 carats and went for a mind-blowing $800,000.
Demantoid Garnet
$5,000 – $10,000 For Each Carat
Demantoid garnet is super rare, so it’s used in old-school jewellery. People first found this gem in the middle of nowhere in Russia’s Ural Mountains back in 1868. Since then, that area has given us some of the rarest garnets ever. What makes Demantoid Garnet stand out from other pricey gems is how crazy shiny it is. It’s way brighter than even the sparkliest diamonds out there. There’s not much of this garnet type to go around, and nobody’s ever found a demantoid garnet stone bigger than 10 carats, except for one weird case we’ll talk about later. The biggest and one of the priciest demantoid garnets weigh 11.24 carats. It came from Russia.
Grandidierite
$20,000 Per Carat
Grandidierite looks so good it’ll make your jaw drop. This super rare gem is a real knockout. When you look at it from different angles, it shows off various shades of blue and green. The best Grandidierite stones are pretty see-through. Gem experts say one out of every 1000 Grandidierite stones is good enough to be called gem quality.
It takes years of know-how to cut Grandidierite stones just right. The stone is tough to cut, so people often shape it into smooth, rounded forms to avoid wasting too much. The most enormous Grandidierite stone in the world is worth a whopping $15.28 million and weighs a massive 764 carats. The Medici collection owns it now.
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