The coloured-stone auction ledger
A record of what coloured stones have realised at auction, kept as a dataset rather than as articles. Every figure traces to the house’s own published result and carries the date it was read. Nothing here is a valuation, and no house pays for inclusion.
- Sales
- 32
- Lots
- 46
- Houses
- 6
- Last read
- Aug 22, 2026
In the ledger
The records table holds every lot, across species and houses. Per-species pages narrow it, named-stone pages follow a single stone through its appearances, and each sale carries its own entry.
Every lot recorded, across species and houses, with realised and per-carat figures side by side.
Open the recordsThe housesHow a coloured-stone sale works, what a published result means, and which houses this ledger records.
Read the houses pageBy species
Named stones
How a result enters the ledger
Five rules, applied to every row. They exist because the same sale is reported with different numbers in different places, and almost every discrepancy comes from one of them being skipped.
- 01
The house, or nothing
A result is taken from the auction house’s own published record. Not from a press summary, not from a resale listing, not from another aggregator. A sale with no citable house record is not published here.
- 02
Hammer and realised stay apart
The hammer is what the bidding reached. The realised price adds the buyer’s premium. Houses publish the second and the trade quotes the first, so both are recorded rather than reconciled into one number.
- 03
Money stays in the currency of the room
Geneva sells in Swiss francs, New York in dollars, Hong Kong in Hong Kong dollars. Nothing is converted. A rate applied at entry would be fixed inside a permanent record and quietly wrong within a month.
- 04
Per carat is derived, never entered
The per-carat figure is calculated from the realised price and the recorded weight, so it cannot drift from the two numbers it comes from. Where either is missing, the column is left empty rather than estimated.
- 05
Unsold lots stay in
A lot that did not sell is recorded as unsold with its estimate intact. A ledger that kept only what cleared would show a market that always clears.
What this is not
- 01Not a valuation. A realised price is a fact about one lot, on one date, in one room.
- 02Not a ranking. Houses are listed alphabetically and are never scored or compared.
- 03Not a verdict. No entry says whether a result was strong, weak or disappointing.
- 04Not a claim about a stone. GemsVerified verifies dealers, never individual stones.
New results, as they are recorded
One list, sent when results are added to the ledger. Each entry carries the house record it was read from and the date it was read.
Say whether you buy, deal, or run a house when you sign up. A dealer wants the per-carat movement, a buyer wants what the notable stones did, and the same results are written up for both.
The ledger is free to read in full and stays that way. Nothing is held back for subscribers, and signing up unlocks nothing, because nothing is locked.
The ledger, answered
What is the most expensive gemstone ever sold at auction?
It depends which figure you mean. The highest realised total and the highest price per carat are usually two different stones, because a large stone can carry a bigger total while a smaller one commands more for each carat. Both readings sit side by side at the top of the records table, bounded to what this ledger has sourced.
What is the rarest gemstone?
Rarity has no single measure. Some species are scarce in the ground, some are scarce above a given weight, and some are scarce untreated. An auction result records what buyers paid on a date, which is evidence of demand at that moment rather than a ranking of rarity.
Is a realised price the same as a valuation?
No. A realised price is what one lot achieved on one date with the buyers who were present. A valuation is an opinion about what a stone would fetch under different conditions. Nothing here is an appraisal, and no figure should be used as one.
Why do the same results appear with different numbers elsewhere?
Usually because hammer and realised are being mixed, or a figure has been converted from another currency at an unstated rate. This ledger keeps hammer and realised in separate fields, states the currency of the sale, and links the house record each figure was read from.
Does GemsVerified have an interest in these sales?
We intend to operate GV Auctions, a separate federated auction layer. We have no commercial relationship with the houses reported here, no house pays for inclusion or placement, and any lot in which we hold an interest is marked in its own row.