None of our rubies or sapphires have been diffusion or Beryllium treated, we don't consider the practice an acceptable form of treatment since little is known about long term effects/durability.The finest rubies look like someone painted a swatch of fluorescent red directly across them. It is an almost glowing red, diffused well through the stone, and is rooted from the unique property of fine Rubies, a rich red fluorescence. While Burma (or sometimes called the Mogok Ruby) is the traditional source for the finest rubies, good stones are a rare find anywhere, the best stones contain tiny amounts of rutile silk which give these rubies their awesome crimson glow
Some neat facts and lore concerning rubies:
- At Sotheby's New York's October 18, 1988 sale, Alan Caplan's 15.97 ct Burmese ruby sold for $3,630,000, or a startling $227,301/ct (most of ours are less!)
- Few named rubies:
- 167 carat Edwardes ruby (British Museum)
- 100 carat DeLong star ruby (Am Mus Nat Hist)
- 138.7 ct Rosser-Reeves star ruby
- Many believed that rubies possessed an inner flame which burned eternally.
- The Burmese believed rubies ripened like fruit, and that the redder a ruby, the more ripened it was. If a ruby was flawed, it was considered over-ripe.
- Although The Black Prince Ruby sits in the Imperial State Crown in London, it is actually a 170 carat spinel
