Market Board

No live ticker exists for colored stones. There is no standard grading system, so nothing is fungible enough to tick like a stock. This board is curated, not live — and that's stated openly because the alternative (dressing up asking prices as an index) would be misleading.

Sources: Gemfields auction press releases (realized $/ct, rough) and Christie's/Sotheby's published results (finished). Every figure links to its source.

Cadence: refreshed weekly; auction sections update as new results publish.

Dealer asking ranges come from a weekly survey of public dealer listings (GemRockAuctions, eBay, gemsngems.com, Etsy) — the same sources each week so ranges stay comparable. These are asking prices, never transaction prices, and each row links to the listings surveyed. September 2026 is the baseline month; the October 4, 2026 survey rebased the natural-rough rows to the current fixed sources, so their arrows restarted flat.

Asking isn't selling. A dealer's listed price is an opening bid, and good rough rarely sells at the number on the tag — but bad rough never sells above it. Read the top of a range as optimism and the bottom as the number that actually moves parcels.

$/ct is only half the math. Faceting rough typically yields 15–25% of its weight as finished stones. A $2/ct parcel at 20% yield is really $10/ct of finished stone — before your time. Run that number before falling in love with a lot.

The range is the data. Wide ranges on this board aren't sloppy surveying; they're real quality spread inside commercial parcels. Two "facet grade" lots at $0.15/ct and $1.60/ct are different materials wearing the same label.

Treatment. Untreated and unheated commands the premium, and the gap is widest in sapphire, ruby, and emerald. Heated goods are a fine buy when the price admits it — the sin is heated material priced like unheated.

Origin. Famous origins carry a premium that has more to do with the finished-stone market than the rough in your hand. For cutting stock, origin is a tiebreaker, not a reason.

Parcel consistency. A parcel that's 90% facet grade at $2/ct beats one that's 40% facet grade at $1/ct. The cheapest per-carat lot is often the most expensive per finished stone.

Size. Clean pieces over ~3 ct are disproportionately scarce, so price per carat climbs with piece size. Small clean rough is the value seat in most species.

Commercial — cuttable, included, small; the working end of the market. Good — better clarity and color than commercial, still not top. Facet grade — should yield eye-clean finished stones; the most abused term on the list. Cabbing grade — too included or fractured to facet, fine for cabs. Parcel — a batch sold as one lot. Melee — small stones, usually under ~0.2 ct finished. Old stock — mined long ago, often before treatments were common; sometimes genuinely untreated, always verify. "Mine direct" — a claim about the supply chain, not a grade.

One photo for a whole parcel. If twenty stones share a single glamour shot, you're buying the photo. No weights or dimensions. "Nice sizes" is not a measurement. Origin stories on unreliable platforms. "Natural Burmese" on a marketplace with no accountability is a story, not a fact. Heated material at unheated prices. Compare against the heated row on this board before paying a natural premium. No returns on rough. Reputable rough dealers stand behind the parcel; "all sales final" on sight-unseen rough is a gamble, not a purchase.