Ruby

Rubies are arguably the most precious and valuable of all colored gemstones. Rubies have been important in many cultures for thousands of years. Ruby is characterized by its vibrant shades of red, excellent luster (facets reflect light almost like a mirror), and hardness (it is difficult to scratch and therefore resilient). Very fine large gemstones of ruby are exceedingly rare.

6 Things You Should Know Before Buying a Ruby

1. Color: The closer the color is to bright blood red, the more valuable it is. Less valuable rubies can be dark wine color, or pink. Learn more about how COLOR affects the value of ruby 2. Size: The more carats a ruby gemstone is, the more valuable it is. A 1 carat ruby with good color and clarity is already quite valubale. Rubies larger than this a rare and very expensive.Learn more about How SIZE affects the value of a Ruby 3. Clarity: Most natural rubies have some cloudiness or imperfections inside: very few are perfectly clear. Better quality rubies are transparent, not opaque. Learn more about how CLARITY affects the value of a Ruby 4. Cut: The quality of a rubys cut determines how well it sparkles. Perfectly cut rubies are very valuable and hard to find. Learn more about how CUT affects the value of ruby 5. Treatments, Synthetics and Imitations: Almost all rubies are treated to improve their clarity and color. Heat treatment is standard and widely accepted. The treatement that the ruby receives can affect its value and quality.In addition, lab created rubies are widely available and are worth much less than natural rubies. Some dishonest sellers might try to sell you a fake ruby. Read here to learn about ruby treatments, synthetics and imitations and how to tell the difference. 6. Meaning and Symbology: Rubies have been sacred to many cultures for centuries. Learn more about the meaning and symbology of ruby to see if its something you relate to.

The Most Valuable Ruby The most valuable ruby is an intense, bright red, large in size (over 5 cts.), fairly clear and perfectly cut (faceted). Here is a Summary of Rubies of Different Levels of Quality and Value:

Price level:

Understanding Gemstone Prices

To give you a sense of how much these gemstones cost, we have created a 5 star system. All gemstones are ranked according to price, 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. Here is a breakdown, more or less of what the stars mean in terms of dollars. A particular type of gemstone will vary greatly according to its level of quality, so we have included the lowest and highest ends of the spectrum among faceted 1 carat gemstones. You will see the greatest difference on the high end. Note: some gemstones are never faceted. In those cases, the prices are for "gem quality" stones.
Number of Stars Lowest Quality Faceted $300 $150 $50 $25 $1 Highest Quality Faceted $50,000 $10,000 $1,500 $350 $35

Ruby Color
The color of ruby and how it affects a rubys value Rubies range from dark pink, to near blackish or browninsh red, to bright red, to orangish red. A ruby is always red. If it is any other color, it is called a sapphire. An excellent color can make the

difference between an amazing ruby and an average ruby. The most valuable color of ruby is familiarly called, pigeon blood red. It is not the most glamorous name, but the color is one of the most heart stopping colors found in the gemstone world. An illustration of how color affects the value of ruby.

Too Dark: This ruby is a very dark wine-like color. Rubies of this color are fairly common and less valuable

Too Light: This ruby is almost too pink and pale to be called a ruby, but instead a pink sapphire (much less valuable than ruby)

Too Pink: Here is an attractive, intense color. However this color is still a touch pinker than ideal for a ruby.

Best Color: This ruby is bright, pure red. This is the most valuable and rare color of ruby.

Ruby Size
How the Size of a Ruby Affects its Value In the wholesale gem trade, rubies are sold on a price per carat basis. Therefore, it would make sense that a 5 carat ruby would cost more than a 1 carat ruby, all else being equal. However, an aditional factor is that it is rarer to find a 5 carat ruby than a 1 carat ruby. Therefore, not only is the total price higher, but the price per carat is also higher because of the added rarity factor. For example, a 1 carat ruby of excellent quality might cost $1000. A 5 carat ruby of the same quality would NOT cost $5000 (5 X 1), rather it might cost $10,000. Here is a comparison of rubies. They have similar color, so we can see how their size affects their value. Note: We are comparing only the main stones, not their settings.

Very small: Rubies of this size are not rare. By themselves, they would be worth less than $100.

Average: This size ruby (about 1 ct.) is more valuble but still easy to find. It would cost about 2 or 3 times the value of the stones to the left.

Large: Rubies this size (over 3 carats) are very rare. A stone of this size can cost between 7 and 10 times the price of the one before.

Very Large: Rubies of this size (over 7 carats) usually belong to queens or in museums. The price of one would be 2 to 4 times the value of the previous ruby.

Ruby Clarity
How Clarity Affects the Value of Ruby It is very rare (nearly unheard of) to find a ruby with natural perfect clarity. 99.9% of rubies are heat treated or irradiated to improve clarity, diminishing the appearnace of the many inclusions. The most common form of inclusion in ruby is white whispy wavy deposits of rutile.

Terrible Clarity: This ruby is very included: we can see large white inclusions inside it and it has an overall opaque appearance due to many small inclusions that make it cloudy.

Poor Clarity: This ruby is not very clear either. It has better clarity than the first though, because there are no obvious large inclusions and the stone is still more transparent than

Typical Clarity: A ruby like this is what is most commonly available in jewelry. It is too cloudy or included to see completely into the stone. However, it is clear enough that we are able

Very Good Clarity: In a natural ruby, this is as good as it gets. A ruby this clear is very rare. It is not perfectly clear: there are some visible inclusions, but in all, the clarity alone

Rubies of this clarity are not precious and should never be very expensive

opaque. However, it is not clear enough to be faceted.

to see some light and sparkle. A ruby of this clarity can be valuable if it is also very large and of excellent color.

makes this ruby very valuable.

Sometimes Inclusions make a ruby more special:

This is a star ruby. It is a ruby heavily included with rutile (another mineral). The rutile inclusions aligned in this gemstone to make a six pointed star when light hits it at a certain angle. This rubies are special and valuable. The most valuable star rubies have very pronounced white stars with the rest of the stone being bright red.

If a ruby has been made into a bead or a cabochon, you know the clariy is poor. (For more info on different ways of cutting gemstones, see general gemstone information). As a rule, only the highest quality gems are faceted.

Ruby Cut
How Cut Affects the Value of Ruby It is nearly impossible to find a perfectly cut natural ruby in the marketplace. There are two reasons. One is that rubies are very expensive, precious and rare, so there is a hesitancy to cut off any more stone than absolutely necessary during the faceting process. The other reason is that ruby forms in the earths crust as octahedral crystals, that are usually wide and flat. These two facts mean that cut rubies found in jewelry are usually cut too shallow. You can sometimes see through them (called fish eye), where if it were cut at the proper angles and proportions, you would only see light and glitter reflected back to you. A well cut ruby is exceedingly beautiful and hard to find. You will know a well cut ruby when you see it because it will dazzle you with its sparkle. This is because when the facets are cut at the proper angles, they act as mirrors and bounce light all around the inside of the stone. Unfortunately, cutting a ruby at the proper angles usually means grinding away a large part of the ruby (a very skilled cutter will cut away even 60%). And since rubies are such valuable gemstones, most of the time gemcutters ere on the side of keeping the gemstone as large as possible, instead of being cut at the proper angles. When you are looking for a ruby, you can use

the following guidelines to help you assess the cut. (Though, you should go in expecting a poor one.)
1. Uneven facets: Rubies are usually given mixed or cushion cuts. Most of them are cut in south Asian countries by hand without the latest lapidary machines. Look for some of the facets to be strangely shaped or for facets which overlap, meeting at a line instead of one single point. These are signs of a poor cut. 2. Fish eye: if the bottom ruby is not cut at the proper angles, you will be able to see through the ruby rather than seeing light reflected back to you. 3. Dullness: Basically, you can tell how well a ruby is cut by how well it sparkles. (This can also be affected by clarity, however) 4. Shallow of Flat Stones: If you are able to see the ruby from the side and it is significantly wider than it is tall, you are looking at a typical bad cut.

Here are some illustrations of how the quality of cut affects the value of a ruby.

Poor Cut: This is an example of a fish eye. We can nearly see straight through this ruby instead of seeing the sparkle of light reflected back to us.

Typical Cut: This cut is similar to what exists in most jewelry: there is some sparkle but the facets are uneven.

Perfect Cut: This is a perfectly, beautifully cut ruby. The lights play and reflect from every facet. We cannot see through it: we only see sparkle. Every facet is even and symetrical.

Ruby Treatments and Synthetics

Ruby Treatments About 99% of rubies on the market are heat treated. Exposing the rubies to extremely high heat improves the rubies clarity and in some cases, color as well. This treatment is so common, it is taken as a given. There is nothing suspicious at all about a heat treated ruby. In recent years,

more sophisticated treatments have arisen such as glass filling and flux healing. Basically, these methods melt out the natural inclusions and fill them with either glass are a kind of synthesis of the ruby crystal. This improves clarity as well, though these treatments are more expensive, more controversial, and less common. (For a gemstone treatment to not diminish a gemstones value, it must be permanent. See General Gemstone Information.) Synthetic Rubies In recent years, synthetic rubies have become very available on the market. They go by labels such as created, lab, synthetic, Chatham (a large producer of Synthetic rubies). They are real rubies in the sense that they are the same mineral, the difference is they were made in a labratory instead of in the earth. Synthetic rubies are usually much clearer than natural rubies: fewer inclusions. Synthetic rubies are cheaper than natural rubies, all other factors being equal.

Heated: This is a very clear natural heattreated ruby. Heat treated rubies are the most common and range considerably in their levels of clarity. Generally, though they are usually cloudier than man made rubies.

Created: This ruby is too good to be true: the first sign that it is probably synthetic is that it is very clear. These rubies are less valuable.

Untreated: Only a handful of rubies in the world are untreated. Large, clear rubies of good color that are untreated command extremely high prices and can only be found in the most expensive jewelry stores.

Alexandrite Synthetics

Alexandrite is so beautiful, so captivating in its color change phenomenon that many people want it. The most beautiful, strongly colored, large-enough-to-see gems are in museums and bank vaults and the rest cost 2 or 3 digits more than what most can afford. All of this combines

to inspire a very developed trade for synthetic alexandrite. Synthetic alexandrite has also been given its own name, to reduce confusion = Zandrite Synthetic Alexandrites are grown in labs they are real alexandrites chemically and physiologically identical the only difference is that they are man made instead of mined from the earth. A synthetic alexandrite is like a strawberry that is grown in a massive field by a commercial farmer. A natural alexandrite is like a strawberry you are lucky enough to find in the forest. One is more valuable than the other, but they are both strawberries. If you own a large (over 2 carats) Alexandrite with beautiful color and strong color change and you do not have insurance papers for it, it is 99% probable that it is synthetic no matter what your grandmother told you.