What is the Most Expensive Ruby in the World?

The most expensive ruby in the world is the Estrela de Fura, a ruby that was sold for 34.8 million dollars at an auction held in New York in 2023. No other ruby has been sold at a price higher than this one till today.

Now, you might be wondering what makes a ruby worth this much money. The size has a role in it, so does the color, and the place this ruby came from matters too, most probably more than you think.

Here in this blog, we will talk about this ruby, the record it broke, and the reasons behind its price, so you can know everything about the most expensive ruby in the world.

So, let's get started.

Most Expensive Rubies in the World

1. The Estrela de Fura, the Ruby That Holds the Record

The Estrela de Fura is a ruby of 55.22 carats, and this size alone makes it a rare stone. Most of the rubies you see at the jewelry stores sit under a carat or two, so a ruby of this size is something even the jewelers get to see once in their life.

The stone came out of a mine in Mozambique run by a company called Fura Gems. The rough was found in July 2022, and it weighed 101 carats at that time, the cutters then worked on this rough and brought the 55.22 carat stone out of it.

The name also came from the same company. Estrela de Fura means the Star of Fura in Portuguese, the language said in Mozambique.

So the record holder is a young stone. It went from the mine to the record books in less than a year.

2. The Auction That Made History

The auction was held by Sotheby's in New York in June 2023. The Estrela de Fura was the biggest ruby to ever come to an auction, so the eyes were already on this stone before the bidding even started.

The ruby was sold for 34.8 million dollars. If we break the cost down, it will come around 630,000 dollars for every single carat, and this per-carat number is what the gem world talks about the most.

The buyer was a private collector from the Middle East. So you cannot walk into a museum and see this ruby today, it sits in a private collection.

With this sale, the Estrela de Fura became the most expensive ruby ever traded, and it also became the most pricey colored gemstone ever sold at an auction. 

3. Why Did This Ruby Sell for This Much

The color is the first reason behind this price. The Estrela de Fura has the deep red color that the gem trade calls pigeon blood, and this color has always been the most wanted color in rubies.

Now, the pigeon blood color was earlier connected with the Burmese rubies only. This stone showed the world that the color can come out of Mozambique too, and the bidders were ready to pay for it.

The clarity did its part as well. Rubies of the bigger sizes usually come with flaws you can see with the naked eye, but Sotheby's described this stone as a ruby of outstanding clarity, a thing you rarely get to say about a ruby of 55 carats.

So when all of this sits in one stone, the price stops following the regular market rates. That's what took it to 34.8 million dollars.

4. The Sunrise Ruby, the Record It Broke

Before the Estrela de Fura, the record was held by a ruby named the Sunrise Ruby. This ruby was sold by Sotheby's in Geneva in 2015 for 30.3 million dollars, and the record stood untouched for eight years after that.

The Sunrise Ruby is a Burmese ruby of 25.59 carats, less than half the size of the Estrela de Fura. The stone was sold sitting in a ring made by Cartier, with diamonds on both sides.

Now, here is the part most of the people miss. The Sunrise Ruby was sold at more than a million dollars per carat, and the Estrela de Fura came to around 630,000 dollars per carat.

So the total price record belongs to the Estrela de Fura, and the per carat record is still sitting with the Sunrise Ruby. One sale could not take everything away from the older stone.

5. Why This Record Changed the Ruby Market

For years, the finest rubies were expected to come from Burma. The pigeon blood color itself was treated as a Burmese thing, and the rubies from the other places were priced below the Burmese ones even when the look was the same.

Then a Mozambique ruby took the biggest record of them all. The mine that gave the Estrela de Fura sits on one of the largest ruby deposits in the world, so the stones from there were already reaching the market in good numbers, the record only gave them the name they were missing.

Now, this does not mean the Burmese rubies have lost their place. They still sell at strong prices, and the per-carat record of the Sunrise Ruby is proof of that.

But if you are buying a ruby today, the country written on the certificate is no longer the only thing deciding the price. The Estrela de Fura made the market accept that a great ruby can come from Africa too.

Final Take

So the answer to the question is simple. The most expensive ruby in the world is the Estrela de Fura, and the stone has been holding this title since 2023.

Records like these do not stay forever. The Sunrise Ruby held its title for eight years before this stone came, and some day a bigger or a finer ruby will come out of some mine, and the auction rooms will get busy again.

Till that day comes, the Estrela de Fura is the name to remember.