15 Most Expensive Diamond Rings In The World (With Pictures)

Who doesn’t cherish the dream of buying the most expensive diamond ring to adorn their beloved one?

After all, in the realm of beauty, diamond rings are by far the biggest and influential icons. Additionally, these precious twinkling pieces are also considered as tokens of a person’s love and affection. That is the reason that celebrities are spending millions, buying high-priced diamond rings, to gift their lovers. 

You will be astonished to know that there are diamond rings in this world which cost more than a million dollars. Are you curious to know what those sparkling pieces looked like and how much they cost?

Here, I am providing you with a list of the 15 most expensive diamond rings that are reigning in the current world.

 

15.The Elizabeth Taylor Diamond Ring (the Krupp Diamond)

For decades, The Elizabeth Taylor Diamond was known as the Krupp Diamond, named after the Krupp family of German industrialists. And it was owned by Vera Krupp, the second wife of Alfried Krupp. A year after the death of Vera Krupp the ring was sold at auction in 1968 and it was Richard Burton who purchased the diamond.

Burton purchased it for $307,000 and presented it to his wife Elizabeth Taylor. The pear-shaped Taylor-Burton diamond weighed at straggling 68 carats.

After the death of Taylor, this Asscher-cut diamond was auctioned at Christie’s in 2011, having been renamed the Elizabeth Taylor Diamond. E-Land, a South Korean conglomerate, purchased the ring for $8,818,500.

According to the Gemological Institute of America, the diamond was of D color and VS1 clarity.GIA also determined it to be a Type IIA and an internally flawless diamond.

14. The vivid pink

The vivid pink is an exquisite colored diamond ring designed by the British jeweler Graff. It features a cushion-shaped diamond weighing 5 carats. 

Along with a shield-shaped clear diamond on either side, this costly stone is mounted on a platinum and 18k white gold ring. On 1 December 2009, the ring sold for $10,776,660 at Christie’s in Hong Kong. 

GIA certified the diamond IIA, meaning it has a rare, homogenous color.

 

13. Mariah Carey’s Engagement Ring

Mariah Carey, an American iconic singer, once had the most expensive diamond engagement ring ranked the top.

Mariah Carey’s engagement ring from her ex-fiancé Packer featured an impressive 35-carat diamond that elegantly set atop a gold band.

Packer, an Australian billionaire, had the ring made by Mariah’s close friend, New York-based jewelry designer Wilfredo Rosado. This emerald cut sparkler worth $10 million. It is regarded as the most expensive diamond engagement ring that any celebrity ever had.

A year and a half after breaking off their engagement, Mariah’s business manager on behalf of the Elusive Chanteuse, sold the ring off to a Los Angeles jeweler for $2.1 million.

12. The 6.01-carats Blue Diamond Ring

The blue diamond ring features a diamond of 6.01 carats. This ring comes in a cushion shape, enclosed by a smaller pink diamond on both sides.

Sotheby’s sold this fancy vivid blue and pink sparkler for $10.1 million at an auction in Hong Kong. The hammer price was far higher than the expected price which was approximately $2.4 to $2.9 million.

11. The Bulgari Blue Diamond Ring

The Bulgari Blue ring was designed in the 1970s by Bulgari in Rome. Paired with a triangular-shaped fancy vivid colorless diamond of 9.87 carats, the 10.95 carats, the triangular-shaped blue diamond is set in a two-stone diamond ring.

It is the largest triangular-shaped fancy vivid blue diamond ever offered at auction. According to Christie’s, the ring fetched $15.7 million, 1.4 million per carat.

10. The Vivid Yellow Ring (Dream Diamond Ring)

Each of the most expensive rings has some unique features that make them stand out in the realm of rings. In the case of this Vivid Yellow ring, it is its size and color that sets it apart.

The Graff Vivid Yellow, named after Laurence Graff, was previously known as the Dream Diamond. It was a 190-carat rough stone when Laurence Graff bought it in Kimberley, South Africa. 

Nino Bianco, a New York master cutter, transformed the stone into its present shape. It took almost nine months of meticulous cutting and polishing, to hone the diamond. 

The new cushion-shaped diamond ring weighed at 100.09 carats. This rare yellow diamond fetched $16.3 million at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva. It is the highest amount ever paid for a yellow diamond.

 9. The Chopard’s Blue Diamond Ring

The Chopard’s Blue Diamond Ring is an exquisite ornament manufactured by the Swiss company Chopard. It features an oval-shaped blue diamond weighing 9 carats. 

This costly stone is mounted on an 18k white gold ring, along with triangular clear diamonds on the sides. This aquamarine piece among the most expensive rings in the world has a value of 16.26 million dollars.

8. The Winston Blue

“The Winston Blue” is considered the world’s largest flawless vivid blue diamond to come on the market ever.

Originally called the Flawless Fancy Vivid Blue Diamond, this sparkler was renamed “The Winston Blue” by the King of Diamonds, Harry Winston. 

Winston purchased the twinkling gem for nearly $23.8 million at Christie’s Geneva Magnificent Jewels sale.  At nearly $1.8 million per carat, the 13.22-carat stone sets a world record for a blue diamond.

At the time of this stone’s sale, among the rarest six blue diamonds weighing more than 10 carats, this teardrop-shaped vivid blue diamond carries the higher value that makes it exceptional. At present, it is the second-highest blue diamond in the world.

7. The Perfect Pink

The Perfect Pink is a rare Fancy Intense Pink diamond ring weighing 14.23 carats. This sparkler is called “The Perfect Pink” because of its clarity and color.

To increase the magnificence of this sparkler, the rectangular-shaped diamond was flanked by two other flawless rectangular diamonds on both sides, which weigh 1.67 and 1.73 carats.

Mounted in 18k rose gold and white gold ring band, the pink diamond sold for almost $23.2 million at Christie’s in Hong Kong.

At the time of this stone’s sale on Nov 29, 2010, among the rarest 18 pink diamonds weighing more than 10 carats, the perfect pink was the only diamond to have appeared at auction. And of those 18 pink diamonds, none aside from this diamond had been graded Fancy Intense Pink.

6. The Cullinan Dream

Originated from the Cullinan mine in South Africa, previously known as the Premier Mine, the Cullinan Dream is the largest of four gems cut from a 122.52-carat rough blue diamond.

Weighing approximately 24.18 carats, the Fancy Intense Blue diamond was sold for $25.4 million at Christie’s New York Magnificent Jewels Sale in June 2016. 

The cut-cornered rectangular mixed-cut stone is set upon a platinum ring, flanked by a baguette-cut diamond on either side. It has been graded by the Gemological Institute of America as Type IIb.

5. The Graff Pink

Among the rarest pink diamonds, the Graff Pink is an exceptional stone indeed that remained the record holder for the most expensive pink diamond until 2017 when the Pink Star came to rise.

The Graff Pink, initially owned by Harry Winston, is a pink diamond that weighs 24.78 carats. The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) classified it as ‘Fancy Intense Pink’.

Laurence Graff, a renowned diamond dealer, purchased the diamond for a whopping $46.16 million at Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels Sale in Geneva. Later, Graff chose to re-cut the diamond to enhance the clarity and color, though he was severely criticized for this decision. After the stone was re-cut, Graff renamed it – The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond.

The new rectangular-shaped diamond ring weighed at 23.88 carats. The color was intensified from intense to vivid and the clarity of the stone to internally flawless. 

This Internally Flawless, Fancy Vivid Pink gem was set in the center of a platinum ring flanked by two shield-shaped white diamonds.

4. The Oppenheimer Blue Diamond Ring

Before the Pink Star, The Oppenheimer Blue Diamond Ring had dominated the jewelry auction headlines as the world’s most expensive diamond ring.

The stone was discovered from the famous Cullinan mine in South Africa and was set into a hoop by renowned jeweler Verdura in the 1990s.

The blue-colored stone was named for its previous owner Sir Philip Oppenheimer, the late chairman of the De Beers diamond-marketing cartel, who acquired the ring as a gift for his wife Pamela.

When the indigo-colored diamond was first mounted on a Verdura “Eight Blades” mounting, its weight was 14.71 carats. But After the death of Sir Philip Oppenheimer, an anonymous buyer purchased it in 1999 and got the diamond dismounted from this setting.

Flanked on either side by a trapeze-shaped diamond, the re-polished stone was set as the centerpiece of a platinum ring. 

The new rectangular-shaped diamond weighed 14.62 carats and sold for $57.5 million at Christie’s Geneva in May 2016.

Christie’s described The Oppenheimer Blue Diamond as “the gem of gems”.

3. The World’s First All-Diamond Ring

Shawish, a Geneva-based Swiss jeweler, has designed a unique diamond ring which is referred to as the “World’s First All-Diamond Ring”.

The weight of the diamond ring comes in at 150 carats and it fetches $70 million at Baselworld.

The ground-breaking ring has been composed entirely of a diamond with the faceted band carved directly into the stone. The ring has no metal support at all.

Mohamed Shawesh, President and CEO of Shawish Jewelry, unveiled the ring via a detailed animation at an exclusive event at Il Bottaccio in London. 

According to the owner, it took them one year to get the copyright claim and had to do multiple tests with the design to get the circle right.

2. The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond Ring

The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond was originated from the Kollur mines of Guntur District in India.

According to the statement of The New York Times, the greyish blue diamond travelled from India to Europe sometime in the 17th century. The news portal also noted that many believe Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a 17th-century traveller, and trader, was the one who brought the stone to the West. 

During the Spanish Civil War, all the previous records regarding the stone’s history were destroyed, so there’s limited knowledge about its ownership. Nonetheless, the sparkler passed through royal hands several times.

According to The New York Times, King Philip IV of Spain offered the beautiful stone to his daughter, Infanta Margarita Teresa when she got engaged to Emperor Leopold I of Austria. After the death of Margarita, the gem was passed to the King’s wife, Empress Eleanor Magdalena, who then gave it to her granddaughter, Archduchess Maria Amelia.

When Maria Amelia wed the Bavarian Crown Prince Charles Albert in 1722, the Wittelsbach diamond became the family diamond of the House of Bavaria, the Wittelsbachs. 

10 years after the death of Louis III, the last King of Bavaria to own the blue diamond, the Wittelsbach family tried to sell the diamond during the Great Depression to financially support the royal descendants but no buyers came forward. It eventually sold the jewel in 1951 and again the stone was put into an exhibition at the World Expo in Brussels in 1958.

In the 1960s, Belgian diamond jeweller Joseph Komkommer was asked to re-cut the diamond but recognizing its historical significance Komkommer refused. In fact, to secure its original state, Komkommer sought out a slew of interested buyers to acquire the diamond. Just two years later in 1962, the stone was purchased by Helmut Horten who presented the ring to his wife Heidi at their wedding.

 

On 10 December 2008, the 35.56-carat Wittelsbach Diamond reappeared at a Christie’s auction and it was the billionaire jeweller Laurence Graff who bought the diamond for a record-breaking $23.4 million.

Laurence Graff decided to re-cut the diamond to enhance its color and clarity, and from the re-cutting, the diamond lost 4.52 carats. Graff renamed the new refined diamond – the Wittelsbach-Graff.

After the process was complete, the Gemological Institute of America updated its color grade from “fancy deep greyish-blue” to “fancy deep blue”. The gem’s clarity had also been revised upward from “very slightly included” to “internally flawless” 

In June 2011, Graff sold the 31.06-carat blue diamond to the former emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa, for at least US$80 million.

1. The largest Pink Star Diamond Ring

The Pink Star is currently the most expensive diamond ring to have sold on the planet. It is referred to as the largest Internally Flawless, Fancy Vivid Pink diamond ever graded by the GEMOLOGY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA.

The De Beers mined the pink diamond in 1999 in South Africa that had around 132.5 carats in the rough.

This 59.60-carat Fancy Vivid Pink diamond was bought and cut by Steinmetz Diamonds. It took almost 20 months of meticulous cutting and polishing, to hone the diamond into its current oval shape.

Later, the oval gem was sold to an anonymous buyer that resulted in the renaming of the diamond to “The Pink Star”. Before it became the Pink Star, this precious jewel was known as the Steinmetz Pink.

The new owner handed the vivid pink diamond over Sotheby’s to auction this precious jewel off. This was the second time The Pink Star was offered in the auction.

It had been offered for sale before in 2013. Isaac Wolf, a New-York- based diamond dealer, purchased the diamond for 83m USD.  Later, he defaulted on his payment when his group of inventors backed out.

This time Dr. Henry Cheng Kar-Shun, chairman of Chow Thi Fook, purchased the remarkable stone for about 71.2 million US dollars, rising to $83 million with commission fees, and renamed it “CTF Pink Star” in honor of his late father.

Finally, it can be said that the most expensive diamond rings in the world are more than just rings. They are the symbols of wealth and power, signifying a person’s status in society.