how much is an olympic curling stone
An Olympic curling stone typically costs in the mid‑hundreds of dollars, with recent top‑level Olympic stones now approaching around 900–1,000 USD (or roughly £750) per stone.
How much is an Olympic curling stone?
- Earlier reports put the price of an Olympic‑certified stone at over 600 USD each, making a full set of 16 stones worth about 9,600 USD.
- Newer coverage around the current Winter Games notes that Olympic‑spec stones can cost around 960 USD (about £750) each , pushing a full 16‑stone set into the 12,000–15,000 USD range depending on exchange rate and exact spec.
- A complete set for a club (16 stones) is usually quoted in the 7,000–12,000 USD band if you’re buying competition‑grade stones, with refurbished sets on the lower end.
So if you’re asking “how much is an Olympic curling stone” right now, a good realistic answer is: expect roughly 600–1,000 USD per stone , with the newest Olympic‑grade batches closer to the top of that range.
Why are Olympic curling stones so expensive?
A few key reasons drive the price:
- Special granite source : Official Olympic stones are made from specific granites quarried on Ailsa Craig, a small island off the coast of Scotland, prized for its durability and resistance to chipping on ice.
- Single approved supplier : Since 2006, all Olympic stones have been supplied by Kays of Scotland, which holds the extraction lease and is the only company whose stones are approved for World Curling Federation events and the Olympics.
- Labor‑intensive manufacturing : Each stone is carefully cored, shaped, and polished, and the running surface underneath has to be machined so that every stone in a set matches tightly in weight, size, and behavior on the ice.
- Limited supply and niche demand : Granite extraction on a protected island is tightly controlled, and the market for true Olympic‑spec stones is small, so costs stay high.
Quick facts at a glance
- Typical weight: about 40 lb (around 18–20 kg) for the stone, plus roughly a pound for the handle.
- Stones per game set: 16 (8 per team).
- Cost per stone (historic media figure): “over 600 USD.”
- Cost per stone (recent high‑end/Olympic spec): about 960 USD or £750.
- Cost per full set: roughly 7,000–12,000 USD, more if you’re buying the most recent Olympic‑grade stones.
Mini “forum style” take
“Wait, they’re just rocks, right?”
Not quite. These are carefully selected Ailsa Craig granites, cored, turned, and tuned so that every stone in a set curls predictably at elite levels. That rare material, plus a single specialist maker, is why one Olympic curling stone can cost as much as a decent entry‑level guitar or laptop.
TL;DR: An Olympic curling stone is not a cheap souvenir; plan on somewhere between 600 and 1,000 USD per stone today, with full Olympic‑grade sets running well into five figures.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.