Ruby… A Symbol Of Love

Red magic and colourful extract “from the drop of our beloved Mother Earth’s blood”

- that is the way the Orient peoples often describe a ruby. The properties of ruby made it a favourite gem of the wealthy, and those in love. Its name derives from the Latin word ruber (red). Luminous and soft shades of ruby change from pink to dark purple. The most precious and most noble one is the crimson with a saturated carmine red colour.

For thousands of years Ruby has been considered as the most precious gem. It has in fact everything a precious gem should: a unique and deep colour, a very high hardness and outstanding brilliance. In addition, it seldom creates large and well-developed crystals of impeccable quality. Ruby, next to the variously coloured, usually blue sapphire, is a transparent variety of corundum. Exceptionally clean in terms of chemical composition, ruby is an aluminum oxide with the summaric formula AL2O3, containing only a small admixture of chromium, which gives the ruby a characteristic red colour (titanium admixture colours the corundum blue in sapphires).

A large part of rubies that are currently on the jewellery market, including the most precious starry rubies, come from several known sources in Burma (now Myanmar). Known and mined since the fifteenth century in the Mogok valley in the northern part of the country, today they are synonymous with excellent quality, full, always rich in red colour, independent from the type o light and of the quite large size. It’s in the Mogok valley that the most famous specimens of the world come from, although exceptional findings (over a few carats) are extremely rare. The average stone size is 1/3 ct.

The red stars trail runs towards the north-east, leading to the small town of Mong Hsu, from where the accepted by the market specimens come. They are thermally enhanced, dark red and purple in the size range of 0.5-3 carats. The second, major rubies supplier is Thailand. Thence derived specimens are characterized by a dark red, saturated colour, frequently going into brown. The region’s deposits of minor importance are located in the Kashmir valley of Hunza in northern Pakistan, Tajikistan, Laos, Nepal and Afghanistan. Since the Asian reserves are dwindling, of the recently discovered reserves in Africa gain in importance. Beautiful rubies are also mined in Madagascar.

In terms of size, the absolute record specimen is the coming from Burma 8.62 ct. ruby, sold on 15 February 2006 at a Christie's auction in the Swiss resort of St. Moritz for the price of 3 637 480 USD! The ruby named Graff - after the London jeweller Laurence Graff who bought it – is set in 18 carat gold ring, coming from the well-known jewellery company Bulgari. Beginning with 2005, an increase of the rubies’ world price have been noticed, which partly may due to increased demand for jewellery decorated with vivid, bright coloured stones and to a visible return of colour in fashion trends.