Wood Price League Table

Wood Cost Comparison | Most Expensive Wood in the World | Top 10 most expensive wood

What Are The Most Expensive Woods You Can Buy?

Many argue that African Blackwood is the most expensive wood in the world. This is also known as Mozambique ebony or Congo Wood. Native to the seasonally dry regions of Africa. But there are others that often compare to the extremely high price of African Blackwood and we have listed some here;

Top Ten Most Expensive Wood

1. African Blackwood
2. Pink Ivory
3. Gabon Ebony
4. Amboyna Burl
5. Brazilian Rosewood
6. Kingwood
7. Lignum vitae
8. Bubinga
9. Sandalwood
10. Purple Heart

Here, at Wooduchoose, we do not stock any of these timbers but, if they are commercially and legally available, we can source them for you.

To assist with wood selection from timber widely available in the UK and from us, we have this compiled this league table;

To download this as a PDF - click here

Our assessment is based on kiln dried timber (with the exception of the Green Oak and the Season Oak) starting from sawn, square edged boards.

This table can be beneficial when attempting to choose a wood for a particular application. These are timbers we offer on our website, available for a wide range of products.

To make this assessment we have simply rated each timber in terms of price to buy in its raw, sawn form. We used m3 price for 50mm boards in each case. The figures used were provided by a number of suppliers where we could readily source the species. Please note that these figures will fluctuate overtime and our comparison table was produced using figures from December 2014.

Please note that this is only our assessment of the costs of these timbers. There are other factors to consider when choosing a timber based on price alone. For example workability can have an impact on the overall cost of a product made from wood. Therefore a relatively inexpensive timber could be costly to machine. In addition the on-going costs need to be considered; if the wood is to be used externally the cost to treat, protect and maintain would need to be factored. Accoya, for example, is fairly relatively expensive but due to its durability/life span and other unique properties – the cost to decorate is lower than most other timbers and the coatings last longer than when applied to most other wood – this can have a positive impact on the overall life cost. 

Other wood can be viewed in the same way – Western Red Cedar is not the cheapest timber on this list, by far, but if you were considering this for cladding it would be a very economical solution. It can be left unfinished; it does not need to be treated all saving time and ultimately; money.

Using wood

Here are some recommended publlications to help with using wood. 

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For more on what timber is best for which applications please do not hesitate to contact us – info@wooduchoose.com