Painite Price Per Carat: Chart, Auction Result, Drivers

The painite price depends on which stone you mean. The one named auction result in our evidence is a 1.07-carat, brownish-orange stone that sold at Bonhams in May 2022 for US$3,570 including premium, about US$3,336 per carat (Bonhams, lot 2060). A seller’s guide lists faceted stones at roughly US$800 to US$6,000 per carat, and the top gem-quality figure quoted since 2018 is US$60,000 per carat (Andrew Christy, The Conversation, 1 August 2018). No exchange or index sets a daily painite price, so every figure below carries its source and date.

This page sticks to price and value. For what the mineral is, how it formed and why it is rare, read our separate guide to the painite mineral. Here we line up the evidence, turn it into dollars for a stone of a given weight, explain what moves the number, and cover the US sanctions question that affects buying gems from Myanmar.

Painite price per carat at a glance

Painite trades in tiers that sit orders of magnitude apart. The table below gives each tier with the source that supports it. Read it as a spread, not as one price.

Chart

Painite price per carat, by tier

US dollars per carat; the auction row is a single sale, so its two points coincide

The gap between the auction result and the top figure is about 18 times (US$60,000 divided by US$3,336). Two cautions apply. The Bonhams number includes the buyer’s premium, so the hammer price was lower; the lot page does not show it. The seller’s guide is a retailer page (it shows ‘Updated 30th Jul 2025’), so treat its ranges as asking-side evidence, not as completed sales. Christy’s US$60,000 is a single figure from a mineralogist writing for a general audience, not a price list.

We looked for a wholesale price guide figure behind the often-repeated “US$50,000 and up” line. The International Gem Society’s painite page (updated 31 January 2025) states no price at all, so we do not attribute that number to it.

How much is painite worth per gram, per kilogram and per stone

A carat is 0.2 g, according to Christy, so you multiply a per-carat price by five to get a price per gram. At the Bonhams rate that is about US$16,680 per gram. At the top-gem figure it is US$300,000 per gram, which matches the US$250,000 to US$300,000 per gram the Gem Rock Auctions guide gives for its US$50,000 to US$60,000 per carat range.

Chart

What a 1.07-carat painite costs at each sourced rate

US dollars; only the Bonhams bar is a real sale, the others are calculated

The per-kilogram figures you see in searches are arithmetic, not quotes. The same sums give about US$16.7 million per kilogram at the Bonhams rate and US$300 million per kilogram at the top-gem figure. Nobody trades gem painite by the kilogram. The largest crystal on record, listed by Guinness World Records at 213.52 carats (42.7 g) according to the Gem Rock Auctions guide, is a crystal, not a gem, and the stones that sell are measured in fractions of a carat. The International Gem Society shows faceted examples of 0.75 and 0.90 carats.

The table applies the sourced rates to three stone weights. It holds the rate flat, which overstates small stones and understates large ones, because larger painites are disproportionately rarer and worth more per carat (Christy, 2018).

Only the 1.07-carat, US$3,570 cell is a real sale; the rest are calculations to show scale.

The Bonhams sale: what a documented painite price looks like

Bonhams sold lot 2060, “Rare Painite”, in its online Gems and Minerals of Old Burma sale (10 to 20 May 2022, Los Angeles). The stone is an oval cut of about 1.07 carats, measuring 6.72 x 5.37 x 3.64 mm, with a rich brownish-orange colour and good lustre, from the Bill Larson Collection in Fallbrook, California. It sold for US$3,570 including premium (Bonhams). Dividing by the weight gives US$3,336 per carat.

Bonhams had offered painite before. A lot in its 4 December 2005 natural history sale paired a 0.93-carat faceted painite with a 0.82-carat rough specimen under a pre-sale estimate of US$5,500 to US$7,500 (Bonhams, lot 8350). The lot page shows the estimate, not the price paid, so it is not a sale record. It does show that an auction house judged the two-stone lot to be worth four figures, not five, two decades ago.

One sale is one data point. It tells you what one buyer paid for a stone Bonhams described as “a rare stone for the collector”. It is one sale of one stone and says nothing about the price of a clean, vivid stone.

What moves the price of a painite

Painite has no grading standard like the diamond four Cs, so buyers weigh the same factors that apply to other coloured gems. Each factor below comes from a named source.

• Size. One carat is the traditional weight unit, and larger stones are disproportionately rare and worth more per weight (Christy). Bonhams called its 2005 stone large for the size of rough typically found.
• Colour. Striking, rare colours almost always raise value (Christy). Painite runs from deep red to brownish-red and orange-red, is strongly pleochroic (it shows different shades from different angles) and glows green under short-wave ultraviolet light; chromium, vanadium and iron cause the colour (Bonhams).
• Clarity and transparency. New finds produced heavily included and fractured rough, and the International Gem Society notes that much of it is not facetable. Clear, transparent stones are the exception, which is why the top tier is so small.
• Cut. An expert cutter can still bring out the beauty of heavily included, fractured rough (International Gem Society, updated 31 January 2025), and the Gem Rock Auctions guide says cutters usually go shallow to work around fractures.
• Provenance and paperwork. The Bonhams lot lists its collection history. A species report from a gem laboratory matters because painite has been mistaken for other minerals; George Rossman of Caltech has been sent many suspected painites, some of which sat misidentified for decades (Live Science).
• Sales channel. An auction result, a retailer’s asking price and a dealer’s trade price are different things. The table above keeps them apart for that reason.

The International Gem Society reports no known synthetic or treated painite, so a laboratory report mostly confirms identity and weight rather than screening for enhancement.

Why there is no single painite price: a small, single-source supply

Myanmar is the only source of painite, according to the International Gem Society. Beside the Ongaing type locality, Kyauk-Pyat-Thet in Mogok and Namyazeik in Kachin State have produced gem-quality material. The Mogok gem gravels are alluvial: sapphires, rubies, spinels and other stones wash down from the hills and collect in river beds, and they have been mined since ancient times (Christy). The same river-gravel logic is why prospectors pan US rivers; see our guide to gold panning locations in US rivers. Painite is not found at those sites, or at the fee-dig sites in our list of gem mines open to the public, because its only confirmed source is Myanmar.

Supply was close to zero until the 2000s. Three crystals were known from 1956 to 1979, and Bonhams reports only two faceted gems as of 2004. After the discovery of new localities, George Rossman’s painite history page at Caltech reports several thousand crystals and fragments recovered, a few nearly complete crystals, and more than a hundred crystals and pieces faceted. The International Gem Society counts over a thousand crystals and fragments and says most are not facetable. The counts differ because nobody keeps a registry.

That is the reason for the wide price range. With only a little over a hundred faceted pieces recorded by Caltech, each of very different quality, there is no deep market, no benchmark and no price that applies to every stone. Mining engineers handle the same problem with ranges: a model that gives a low, middle and high outcome rather than one number. The video below explains how that works in a mine economic model; the logic carries over to reading a painite price table.

▶ Farmonaut Mining Pro course: why a mine economic model gives a low, middle and high outcome instead of one number. · 14:59

Painite beside record-price gems

Rarity alone does not set a per-carat price; demand, fashion and name recognition do (Christy). Painite’s rarity is extreme, yet its top figure is far below the best-known auction results for other gems.

Chart

Painite beside two record auction prices, per carat

US dollars per carat; record sales of exceptional stones, rounded

The Pink Star, a 59.60-carat diamond, sold for US$71.2 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on 4 April 2017 (CNN). The 25.59-carat Sunrise Ruby, an untreated Burmese stone, sold for US$30.3 million at Sotheby’s in Geneva in May 2015 (The Jewellery Editor). Both work out to about US$1.2 million per carat. The top painite figure is about 5% of that, and the Bonhams painite is under 0.3%. These are record sales of exceptional stones, not typical prices, so the chart shows the ceiling for gems in general rather than a fair comparison.

For a ranked comparison of minerals by price per carat, see our table of the most valuable minerals by price per carat, our note on the most expensive mineral on earth, and our guide to the rarest gemstones worldwide.

How to check a painite price quote in five steps

If a seller quotes you a painite price, run the quote through these steps before you pay a deposit. The flow below sets them out in order.

Infographic

Check a painite quote in 5 steps

1. 1Get the lab reportAsk for a gem laboratory report that names the species and gives weight to two decimals.
2. 2Place it on the tiersCompare the per-carat quote with the auction, seller and top-gem tiers.
3. 3Ask the channel and dateFind out if the figure is an asking price, an auction result or a trade price, and when.
4. 4Check the chainAsk who handled the stone and whether any party is a Myanmar state gem body.
5. 5Get a second viewAsk a second dealer or an independent appraiser to price the same report.

Weight matters because the price is per carat: a stone listed as “about a carat” and one weighing 0.80 ct differ by 25% at the same rate. Ask for the weight to two decimals on the laboratory report, not the seller’s page.

Buying painite in the US: Myanmar sanctions

Anyone searching to buy a painite in the US meets a legal question that price guides skip. On 8 April 2021 the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Myanma Gems Enterprise (MGE), a state-owned entity that Treasury described as responsible for all gemstone activities in Burma, under Executive Order 14014 (US Department of the Treasury, 8 April 2021). Property of the designated entity in the US or held by US persons is blocked, and entities owned 50% or more by blocked persons are also blocked. OFAC’s rules generally bar US persons from transactions that involve blocked property or interests, including receiving goods or services from a blocked person.

Earlier rules were different. A US ban on imports of Burmese jadeite and rubies, and jewellery containing them, was revoked when President Obama issued Executive Order 13742 on 7 October 2016 (National Law Review; Congressional Research Service). Neither the old ban nor the 2021 press release names painite. Whether a particular painite purchase touches MGE depends on the chain of ownership, which is why documentation affects both price and resale. For that reason:

• Buy from dealers and auction houses that document where a stone has been and who has handled it.
• Ask in writing whether any party in the chain is, or is owned by, a Myanmar state gem body.
• Keep the invoice, origin statement and laboratory report.
• Check OFAC’s current Burma information and take legal advice before a large purchase, because designations change.

Estimate the value of a painite stone

Use the calculator to turn a weight and a per-carat rate into a stone price, add a buyer’s premium or dealer margin, and see the same stone at the Bonhams rate and at the top-gem figure. The default numbers are examples. Replace them with the quote you have been given.

What the price record says about painite as a holding

People ask whether painite is an investment. This page cannot say, but the record shows what a holder would face. There is no exchange, index or published daily price. The only documented sale in our evidence is one auction result from 2022. The tiers are about 18 times apart, and the same stone could be priced at either end depending on who describes it. Identity and chain of custody have to be proven, and sanctions rules on Burmese gem trade may affect who can legally buy a stone when you want to sell. New finds in Myanmar have raised supply since the 2000s, and nobody can say how that will affect future prices. None of this is advice to buy or sell.

Mapping a gem district from orbit

Satellite imagery cannot see a painite crystal, and Farmonaut’s mineral detection does not list painite among the materials it screens for. What satellite screening can do for a licence holder in a gem district is map terrain, host-rock and alteration patterns, and faults before a field team is sent out. That is a way to rank ground to visit, not a price or a resource estimate. The video below explains how remote sensing works in plain terms.

▶ Remote sensing for mining explained in three minutes, without jargon. · 2:01

Frequently asked questions

How much is painite worth?

It depends on quality. A documented 2022 auction brought about US$3,336 per carat for a 1.07-carat brownish-orange stone, a seller’s guide lists faceted painite at US$800 to US$6,000 per carat, and the top gem-quality figure quoted since 2018 is US$60,000 per carat.

What is the painite price per carat?

There is no single price. The sourced figures are US$3,336 (Bonhams, May 2022), US$800 to US$6,000 (seller’s guide, retrieved 26 October 2026) and US$60,000 (Christy, August 2018). Place a stone on the tiers table by colour, clarity, size and paperwork.

What is the painite price per gram?

Multiply the per-carat price by five, because a carat is 0.2 g. That gives about US$16,680 per gram at the Bonhams rate and US$300,000 per gram at US$60,000 per carat.

What is the painite price per kilogram?

The arithmetic gives about US$16.7 million per kilogram at the Bonhams rate, but gem painite is not sold by the kilogram and no quoted kilogram price exists. Treat the figure as a unit conversion only.

How much does a painite crystal cost?

Small uncut crystals sell online for tens of dollars, and poor-quality cut stones for about A$100 each, according to Christy (2018). The Gem Rock Auctions guide gives US$0.60 to US$15 per carat for non-gem crystals.

Is painite more expensive than diamond?

Not at the top of the market. The Pink Star diamond and the Sunrise Ruby each sold for about US$1.2 million per carat, roughly 20 times the US$60,000 top painite figure. Ordinary diamonds are not comparable to either end of the painite range, and we do not give a typical diamond price here.

What is the price of painita in Spanish-language sources?

Painita is the Spanish name for the same mineral, so the price is the same: about US$3,336 per carat at the 2022 auction and up to US$60,000 per carat for the best stones. There is no separate market.

Why is painite so expensive?

Supply is tiny and comes from one country. More than a hundred crystals and pieces have been faceted (Caltech), and most recovered material is too fractured to cut (International Gem Society). Painite also contains zirconium and boron, two elements that are not found together in any other mineral (Christy).

Is painite still the rarest gem?

Live Science ranks kyawthuite, known from a single crystal, as the rarest mineral and painite as second. Rarity is not the same as price. The mineral guide linked at the top covers the record question.

Where can I check a current painite price?

No index exists. Compare recent auction results, such as those in the Bonhams archive, with a laboratory-certified quote from a specialist dealer, and make sure the weight and channel match your stone.

Is it legal to buy painite in the US?

Painite is not named in US Burma sanctions, but transactions with Myanma Gems Enterprise or entities it owns 50% or more are blocked under OFAC rules. Document the chain of custody and take legal advice before a significant purchase.

Can a laboratory tell if painite is real?

A gem laboratory can identify the species and weight. The International Gem Society reports no known synthetic or treated painite, so the main risk is a different mineral sold under the name.