Counted alone the ruby went for a per-carat record of just over USD $550,000 per-carat. At 6.04 carats the total came to almost USD $3,333,000.00.
Ruby is red corundum colored by chromium, and Pink Sapphire is pink corundum colored by a little less chromium than Ruby. The difference is this: Ruby has a little less than 1% chromium and Pink Sapphire generally has about 1/2 of that.
Now, here is where it gets interesting. What happens in the gems that don’t know enough to fit squarely in one camp or another? Well, some Pink Sapphires get close to red and some Rubies have apparently had a brush with Clorox and come up a little pale to be considered “red.”
Some of the best fun we’ve had was in the late 90’s when we would buy some of the more pale Burmese Rubies that were cut a little chunky on the bottom in what they call a “mixed cut.” The mixed cut would have a heavy rounded bottom in an effort to conserve color. We would buy these, cut the bottom to a “brilliant” bottom pretty much like a diamond is cut, lose a bunch of color and have the prettiest, darkest hot pink sapphires we’ve ever seen.
Sometimes things that are between the lines of common definition are the best!
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Whether you are born in July, are a collector of fine gemstones, or a jewelry devotee, the Mogok Ruby should be part of your lexicon. Fine Ruby is sometimes known as the “king of gems”. Ruby from this fabled area of Myanmar (Burma) is highly sought after. Some of the premier stones in collections and museums are from this special Mogok region.One such stone is the “MOGOK RUBY” weighing 15.97 carats. This beautiful cushion cut gem sold at Sotheby’s auction house of New York for $3,630,000.00 in 1988. It was purchased by Graff of London and later resold to the Sultan of Brunei as an engagement ring for his wife. The incredible color and size make this gem ruby a superior collectible. What would it be worth in today’s money? No doubt a lot more. Especially now that it has an interesting provenance…
As a true ruby aficionado, I’ve been just waiting for July to roll around the calendar. As young gem dealers Laura and I spent months in Thailand early on in our careers. Among our missions there, learning about ruby was towards the top of the list. Over the years we’ve spent months (perhaps years) in Southeast Asia dealing in rubies and enjoying every exciting and even every frustrating minute of it.Based on price per carat and price per stone, ruby is probably the king of all colored stones. On a price per stone basis there may be some good competition with emerald. This may well be due to the fact that emerald comes in bigger sizes than ruby.
John and Laura Ramsey • Gems at Large • Ramsey Gems 