Red and purple gems1/6/2024 ![]() ![]() However, those from Sri Lanka are generally too light in color, while, with other sources, such as Kenya, Pakistan and Afghanistan, material clean enough for faceting is rare. In actuality, rubies from most sources possess a strong red fluorescence and silk similar to those from Burma, with the Thai/Cambodian rubies being the exception. ![]() Thai/Cambodian rubies contain no rutile silk, and thus possess more extinction. This gives softness, as well as spreading it across a greater part of the gem’s face. Such tiny exsolved inclusions scatter light onto facets that would otherwise be extinct (dark). What gods are these? Not only did they bless the ruby with an inborn glow to match its scarlet skin, but such was their benevolence that they also gave us silk - oriented needles of rutile - gossamer threads that banish the darkness besmirching the rest of the mortal gem world. Photo: Harold & Erica Van Pelt Gems: Pala International Rough and cut rubies from Burma, Vietnam and Afghanistan Indeed, the King of Ceylon was said to possess a ruby that shone so brightly that when he brought it out at night, it would light up the entire palace. This is the carbuncle of the ancients, a term derived from the glowing embers of a fire. The best Burmese stones actually glow red and appear as though Mother Nature brushed a broad swath of fluorescent red paint across the face of the stone. However, where facets are cut too steep, light exits through the side instead of returning to the eye, creating darker areas (extinction).Īll stones possess extinction to a certain degree, but in fine rubies, the strong crimson fluorescence masks it. These Fe-rich rubies display good color where light is properly reflected off pavilion facets (internal brilliance). Thai/Cambodian rubies might possess a purer red (less purple) body color, but they lack the strong fluorescence. This red glow is key, for it tends to cover up the dark areas of the stone caused by extinction from cutting. Indeed, the first lasers made use of this very property (synthetic ruby is still a common laser material). In one of those glorious accidents of nature, ruby is blessed with both a red body color and a tendency to take bits of visible blue and green light and blast them back with a laser-like red emission. Ruby’s red glow is like the snowflake and the rainbow. This results from a mixture of the slightly bluish red body color and the purer red fluorescent emission. The best rubies have high color saturation. Thus there are plenty of corundums with chromium, but only a rare few that grow slowly enough to achieve perfection. Why that is so is because fine ruby requires chromium, and chromium, as it does in emerald and alexandrite, messes with the stone, breaks it up inside. So rare is this lass that even an eight is worthy of down-on-your-knees idol worship. In analyzing this gem we must first realize the perfect ruby does not exist. Ruby is among the rarest of all the major precious stones, with only a handful of sources producing facet qualities in any commercial quantity. That said, let us take a look at the beast known as ruby. And no more passionate gem exists than the ruby. No, for thoughts of love and passion, only one color will do - red. Women do not paint their lips green, nor do men send their love blue valentines. And red? Red is fire, blood, the very life-giver itself - passion. There is something primal about our attraction to these gems. Blue, green and red - sapphire, emerald and ruby - the colored-stone trinity. ![]()
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