Auctions & record sales

Four houses lead the international trade in important jewels. Sotheby's is the oldest: the bookseller Samuel Baker held his first auction in London on 11 March 1744, and the firm was taken private again in 2019 by Patrick Drahi. It reported consolidated sales of US$7.1 billion for 2025, 18% above 2024. Christie's was founded by James Christie in 1766 and joined François Pinault's Groupe Artémis in 1998; its main sale hubs are New York, London, Hong Kong, Paris and Geneva. Harry Phillips opened his rooms in Westminster in 1796; Bernard Arnault of LVMH bought the firm in 1999, Simon de Pury took a majority stake in 2002, and Phillips now sells jewels in Geneva, New York and Hong Kong. Bonhams also runs jewel sales: GIA recorded a pair of Kashmir sapphire earrings sold at Bonhams London in December 2015 for US$2.3 million.

The calendar repeats. Phillips scheduled Geneva jewel auctions for 11 May and 9 November 2026, New York for 10 June and Hong Kong for 29 September. Christie's and Sotheby's follow the same Geneva pattern in May and November.

Published results include the buyer's premium, a percentage the house adds to the hammer price. Under the schedule Christie's put into effect on 1 September 2026 it charges 28% of the hammer price up to US$2 million, 22% to US$8 million and 15% above that, and tells bidders that estimates exclude it.

The CTF Pink Star holds the auction record for any jewel. The 59.60 ct oval mixed-cut diamond, Fancy Vivid Pink and Internally Flawless, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong in April 2017 for US$71,175,926 to Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, which renamed it. In October 2022 Sotheby's sold the 11.15 ct Williamson Pink Star in Hong Kong for HK$453,223,000 (US$57,736,078), or US$5,178,124 per carat, the record for any diamond.

Blue diamonds fill much of the list. Christie's sold the 14.62 ct Oppenheimer Blue, a Fancy Vivid Blue of VVS1 clarity, in Geneva on 18 May 2016 for CHF 56,837,000, or US$57,541,779, still the price record for a blue diamond. Sotheby's sold the 15.10 ct De Beers Blue, the largest fancy vivid blue offered at auction rather than the dearest, in Hong Kong on 27 April 2022 for HK$450,925,000 (US$57.5 million), and the 12.03 ct Blue Moon of Josephine in Geneva in November 2015 for US$48,468,158.

Colored stone records need care. Sotheby's puts the 25.59 ct Sunrise Ruby at US$30,335,698 (Geneva, May 2015); GIA gives US$32.4 million, or US$1,266,901 per carat, a record for a colored gemstone, not for a ruby. The 55.22 ct Estrela de Fura made about US$34.8 million in New York in 2023. The ruby per-carat record is disputed: Christie's claimed it for the 15.04 ct Crimson Flame (Hong Kong, December 2015) at US$1.2 million per carat.

Christie's holds both sapphire records. In Geneva on 11 November 2014 it sold the Blue Belle of Asia, an unheated 392.52 ct Ceylon sapphire set in a necklace, for CHF 16,965,000 (US$17.3 million), a record for any sapphire at auction. The per-carat record is recent. In Hong Kong in May 2025 the Regent Kashmir, an unheated 35.09 ct Kashmir sapphire in a ring, made HK$74,675,000, about US$9.5 million or US$271,515 per carat. It overtook a 27.68 ct Kashmir sapphire that Sotheby's sold in Hong Kong in October 2015, which GIA put at US$242,145 per carat.

On 12 November 2024 Christie's Geneva sold the Aga Khan Emerald, a 37.00 ct Colombian stone with no clarity enhancement in a 1960 Cartier brooch, for CHF 7,765,000 (US$8,859,865). Christie's called it the most expensive emerald sold at auction, ahead of Elizabeth Taylor's Bulgari pendant brooch, US$6,578,500 in New York in December 2011. The per-carat record is older: on 20 June 2017 Christie's New York sold the 18.04 ct Rockefeller Emerald, also Colombian and without clarity enhancement, for US$5,511,500, or US$305,516 per carat.

Bonhams sold the 50.13 ct Hope Spinel, a rose-pink stone from the Kuh-i-Lal mines in Tajikistan, in London on 24 September 2015 for £962,500, about US$30,000 per carat. Bonhams reported this as a record per carat for a faceted spinel, against US$16,000 per carat set in 2013.

A famous former owner can multiply a price. Christie's New York sold the jewels of Elizabeth Taylor on 13 December 2011. La Peregrina, a 50.56 ct natural pearl that Richard Burton bought for her at Parke-Bernet Galleries in January 1969, made US$11,842,500 against an estimate of US$2 million to US$3 million. The 33.19 ct Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, a D-color Type IIa stone Burton bought in 1968, sold for US$8,818,500 on an estimate of US$2.5 million to US$3.5 million. GIA puts the 1987 Sotheby's Geneva sale of the Duchess of Windsor's jewels at US$50.3 million, a record for a single sale at the time.

Royal provenance works the same way. The Princie, a 34.65 ct Fancy Intense Pink Golconda-type diamond that came from the Nizams of Hyderabad and was named by Pierre Arpels in 1960, sold at Christie's New York in April 2013 for US$39,323,750. In November 2018 Sotheby's Geneva sold the Bourbon-Parma royal jewels for CHF 53.5 million (US$53.1 million); a natural pearl pendant worn by Marie Antoinette made CHF 36,427,000 (US$36,165,090), a record for a natural pearl.

Provenance can also bring trouble. Christie's three sales of Heidi Horten's jewels in 2023 totalled CHF 179,946,620, which GIA reports as US$202.2 million. They drew criticism over her husband's dealings in Nazi Germany.

Mining companies sell much of their output through their own tenders, and a few publish the results. Gemfields is the most visible in colored stones. It owns 75% of the Kagem emerald mine in Zambia, with the Zambian state holding the rest, and 75% of Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM) in Mozambique, where the local partner Mwiriti Limitada holds 25%. By September 2026 Gemfields reported cumulative auction revenue of US$1.1 billion from Kagem since July 2009 and US$1.2 billion from MRM since June 2014.

Rough is sorted into lots by quality and offered to invited trade buyers. An auction of commercial-quality emeralds that ran from 24 August to 10 September 2026 sold all 44 lots for US$29.6 million, an average of US$9.72 per carat. Gemfields held its first Trade Select ruby auction from 22 to 29 June 2026, adding sapphire categories; it sold 82 of the 89 lots and 348,409 of the 374,008 carats offered for US$23.1 million, an average of US$66.30 per carat.

Production dwarfs those numbers. In 2024 Kagem produced 40.3 million carats of emerald and beryl and MRM produced 1.56 million carats of ruby and corundum. Because colored stones have no published price list, these announcements are among the few public data points on rough prices.