FLOAT 100 · Jewelry · No. 11
Estrela de Fura Ruby
Less than a year after a 101-carat crystal turned up in northern Mozambique, its polished heart became the most expensive ruby, and the most expensive colored gemstone, ever sold at auction.
- Year
- sold 2023
- By price in jewelry
- 12 of 100
Create a free account to see every recorded price and every grade.
Create a free account- Weight
- 55.22 carats, cushion shape, set as a ring
- Rough
- 101 carats, described as the largest gem-quality ruby ever discovered
- Found
- July 21, 2022, at FURA Gems' mine near Montepuez, Mozambique
- Name
- Portuguese for "Star of FURA," for Mozambique's official language
- Color
- "Pigeon's blood" red, per two laboratories
- Treatment
- No evidence of heating, according to the laboratories that examined it
- Cut
- In Bangkok in 2023 by master cutter Chirapat Yingthawiphiphat
- Sold
- June 8, 2023, at auction in New York, for $34,804,500
- Price per carat
- About $630,000
- Records
- Most expensive ruby and most expensive colored gemstone ever sold at auction
A crystal from Cabo Delgado
The stone was found on July 21, 2022, at a ruby mine near Montepuez in Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique, operated by FURA Gems. In the rough it weighed 101 carats, and it has been described as the largest gem-quality ruby ever discovered.
FURA Gems was founded in 2017 by Dev Shetty and is based in Dubai. It mines emeralds in Colombia, sapphires in Australia and rubies in Mozambique, where by 2024 it held nine licenses covering about 100 square kilometers of the Montepuez region. The company says it is the only producer of all three gemstones on three continents.
FURA showed the rough in Dubai on September 4, 2022. The Gübelin Gem Lab examined it, and its specialist Daniel Nyfeler said it would yield an intense, saturated red once fully and properly faceted. The company named it Estrela de FURA, "Star of FURA" in Portuguese, Mozambique's official language.
One stone, not several
Planning for the cut began in January 2023, and the rough went to Bangkok in February. The work was done in Bangkok by master cutter Chirapat Yingthawiphiphat, with advice from a French gem firm and engineers from the Bellerophon Gemlab, and with FURA's team overseeing.
The rough's clarity made a choice possible that most large rubies do not allow: cutting a single large gem rather than several smaller ones. The finished cushion weighs 55.22 carats, a little more than half the weight of the crystal. A senior jewelry specialist at the selling house said the chance to turn a once-in-a-lifetime rough into a faceted gem of this caliber "is the dream of any master cutter."
Gübelin's lab said the ruby set a new record not only for Mozambican rubies but for rubies in general.
What the laboratories found
Five gemological laboratories certified the stone as a natural ruby with no evidence of heating; two of them graded its color as "pigeon's blood" red.
The Swiss Gemmological Institute SSEF described its color as a beautifully saturated and evenly distributed red, of medium strong saturation by its standards. Under the microscope it found fine rutile needles arranged in zones, platelets, roundish amphibole inclusions and regularly dispersed tiny whitish patches. Raman spectroscopy identified the mineral diaspore in a fluid inclusion, which supported the conclusion that the stone had never been heated.
SSEF issued the ruby one of its Provenance Books, a document it reserves for rare and exceptional gems and jewelry. For identification, the essential facts are its 55.22-carat weight, cushion shape, Mozambique origin and the laboratory reports that accompany it.
From Hong Kong to New York
The faceted stone was unveiled in Hong Kong on April 5, 2023, and then traveled to Taipei, Singapore, Geneva and Dubai before the sale. It was offered in New York with an estimate in excess of $30 million.
On June 8, 2023, it sold for $34,804,500, about $630,000 per carat. One account says bidding opened at $21 million and that an anonymous telephone bidder won it; another describes the buyer as a private collector from the Middle East. Quig Bruning, the selling house's head of jewelry, said that with "its unprecedented size, piercing color and rare degree of optical transparency and clarity, it truly deserved the record-breaking price today."
It set world auction records for a ruby and for any colored gemstone. The same evening a 10.57-carat purplish pink diamond also sold for $34.8 million, the first time two stones had passed $30 million in a single sale at that house.
Rubies at diamond prices
The record it broke belonged to the Sunrise Ruby, a 25.59-carat Burmese pigeon's blood ruby sold at auction in Geneva on May 12, 2015. Sources give that price as $30.3 million or $30.42 million. A month before the Estrela de FURA sold, the Sunrise Ruby returned to auction in Geneva on May 10, 2023, after its owner's death, and brought $14.7 million.
The Estrela de FURA, from Mozambique, outsold the Burmese record holder while weighing more than twice as much. One account of the sale summed up the shift: top-quality rubies, "the King of gemstones," were now reaching price levels that until recently had been reserved for diamonds.
The numbers
- Carat weight
- 55.22 carats (from 101-carat rough)
- Color
- Pigeon's blood red; medium strong saturation by SSEF standards
- Treatment
- No heating (five laboratories)
- Origin mine
- FURA Gems, Montepuez, Cabo Delgado, Mozambique
- Cutter
- Chirapat Yingthawiphiphat, Bangkok
Timeline
The 25.59-carat Sunrise Ruby sets the ruby auction record in Geneva, the mark the Estrela de FURA would later break.
Dev Shetty founds FURA Gems in Dubai.
A 101-carat ruby crystal is recovered at FURA's mine near Montepuez, Mozambique.
The rough is unveiled in Dubai.
Planning for the cut begins.
The rough is sent to Bangkok for cutting by master cutter Chirapat Yingthawiphiphat.
The finished 55.22-carat stone is unveiled in Hong Kong, then shown in Taipei, Singapore, Geneva and Dubai before the sale.
The Sunrise Ruby resells at auction in Geneva for $14.7 million.
Sold at auction in New York for $34,804,500, records for a ruby and for any colored gemstone.
The world in 2023
Germany closes its last nuclear power plants, ending 50 years of nuclear power.
India passes China as the world's most populous country.
Charles III and Camilla are crowned at Westminster Abbey.
The G7 summit is held in Hiroshima, Japan.
A train collision in Odisha, India, kills at least 296 people.
Scientists report the first synthetic human embryo created from stem cells.
Ten days after the sale, the Titan submersible implodes on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five aboard.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 8, 2023 | $30,000,000 | Estimate, not a salePresale estimate in excess of $30 million. |
| Jun 8, 2023 | $34,804,500 | Sold at auctionSold at auction in New York, about $630,000 per carat. World auction record for a ruby and for any colored gemstone. |
A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.
By reference price, Estrela de Fura Ruby is number 12 of 100 in the jewelry entries of the FLOAT 100. 44 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (11 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- Its name is Portuguese for "Star of FURA," a nod to Mozambique's official language.
- Less than eleven months passed between the crystal's discovery and its record sale.
- Scientists confirmed it was unheated partly by finding the mineral diaspore inside a tiny fluid inclusion.
- It sold for exactly the same headline price as a pink diamond in the same sale, $34.8 million.
- The ruby whose record it broke resold a month earlier for less than half of its 2015 price.
- The cutter kept it as one stone instead of several because its clarity allowed it.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026