While most people fall in love with the more popular stones, such as glittering diamonds, elegant emeralds, and beautiful rubies, beyond that, there exists gems that are sought after that owning even one of them could cost as much as several car or house payments. This list contains the top five of the most valuable gemstones of today.
1. Jadeite – Born of the mineral jade, Jadeite gains most of its value due to its rarity in the gemstone world. It has been found that the most valuable jade as a solid green color. This can be specifically found in California and Guatemala.
Jadeite is incredibly durable because of its density. Additionally, it carries a wallet-busting price of $3 million per carat. In fact, it was in 1997 that a jadeite bead necklace called “Doubly Fortunate” sold for an impressive $9.3 million dollars at Christie’s auction house in Hong Kong.
2. Serendibite– The rarity of this gemstone makes it virtually impossible to find. Found mainly in Sri Lanka, the beautiful shade of blue results from the boron found in the gemstone. However, the mineral is also composed of aluminum, calcium, oxygen, and magnesium. Also, the gemstone has a slight glow to it.
Unbelievably, Serendibite’s extreme rarity means it’s only been found 3 times and each sample was less than a carat. D.P. Gunasekera found two of the gemstones. Serendibite goes for $1.8 to $2 million per carat.
3. Blue Garnet– The Blue garnet’s most treasured feature is that it has the ability to alter its color depending on the light that shines on it. This ability owes itself to vanadium, which will give a bluish-green hue to the blue garnet during the day, and a purplish hue by night. Only in the late 1990s was the blue garnet discovered and it was actually discovered in Madagascar. The beautiful blue garnet is priced at around $1.5 million per carat, though in 2003, a 4.2 carat stone sold for $6.8 million.
4. Red Diamond – Although many may prefer colorless diamonds due to their appeal as engagement ring jewelry, it is the red diamond that wins in the rarity department due to its red color, with only a few having been mined. They all came from the Argyle mine in Australia. The rare diamond carries the hefty price tag of $1 million per carat and its highly valued, elegant, exquisite reddish-purplish hue originates from nitrogen, which is embedded in the crystalline structure. The 5.1 carat Moussaieff diamond is the most valuable diamond today.
5. Painite – First found in the 1950s by British mineralogist C.D. Pain in Myanmar, Painite’s extreme rarity comes from the fact that only twenty-five stones have ever been discovered. Painite, at one point, was believed to be the rarest gemstone in history. It will set you back $50,000-$60,000.