We often think of diamonds as rare beauties, but the truth can not be farther away from this. The annual production of diamonds in the world has already crossed the 142 million carat mark, which means that there are plenty of diamonds in the world right now and more are being mined right now. According to the leading wholesale gemstone dealers in Asia, there are other gemstones in this world that are far rarer than diamonds. And most of these really rare gemstones are not 10 or 100 times rarer than diamonds.
The kind of rarity that it is talking about goes into the thousands. Yes, some of these rare gemstones are less than 1000 times rare than diamonds, which means that for every thousand diamonds that are found, there is only the possibility of finding one of these gemstones. Let’s take a look at some of the rarest gemstones in the world.
Rarest Gemstones Ever Discovered
-
Painite
The holder of the world record of the world’s rarest gemstone, there were less than 25 known specimens of Painite in the world by 2005. However, more than 1000 specimens have been discovered in Myanmar over the last 16 years, which still hasn’t taken the record of its rarity away from.
-
Taaffeite
Named after the gemologist who discovered the stone, Count Richard Taaffe, Taaffeite didn’t even exist on the map of gems before 1945. It was originally thought to be a spinel, but thorough analysis discovered that it was a new species of gems and was promptly named after its discoverer. While there are close to only 50 known specimens mined from Sri Lanka, southern Tanzania and China, the most famous one was a kite-shaped stone weighing 5.34 carats that sold for US$ 20,000.
-
Red Beryls
While beryls are themselves very rare to occur naturally, the possibility of red beryl is significantly lower. They are only found in the Wah Wah Mountains of Utah, New Mexico. They are so rare that for every 150,000 gem-quality diamonds, there is only one Red Beryl found. You can understand its rarity by the fact that Red Beryl goes for close to $10,000 per carat, with the largest Red Beryl ever found to weigh only 54 carats.
-
Tanzanite
A gemstone named after an entire country? That is because Tanzania is the only place in the world where one can find this gemstone, and there is only one mine for beautiful trichroic stone in the world. However, since you can find the stone with mostly deals in wholesale gemstone hong kong this does not really qualify as a quality for a rare stone. What makes this stone really rare is that it is expected to be completely mined out in the next couple of decades.
-
Red Diamonds
While there are a total of 12 types of colored and fancy diamonds in the world, which themselves are quite rare, the red diamonds are the queens of the rare diamonds. Yes, even rarer than the beautiful blue diamonds. These are so rare that even the smaller stones are considered ‘investment quality’. In fact, the largest internally flawless red diamond is only 5.11 carats in weight. The first every red diamond was discovered in 1956 and fetched a price of $927,000. Speak about rare!
Rarity is what we often look for in our jewelry, which is why we often go for diamonds. While a number of gemstones on this list are so rare that many can’t even afford to buy them, it is great to know that there are some really precious stones out there.
Tags: gemsgemstone jewelleryGemstonesprecious gemstones