Burmese ruby opinions

[Dr_Diesel]

Isn’t that a bit dodgy? Surely it’s better for their credibility and reputation to put the actual evaluator’s name and signature, as long as they use the same standard doesn’t matter whose name is on paper.

That’s just not how they operate.

This one was done at the Silom Branch:

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

Don’t get me wrong, their evaluations are legitimate and it is a reputable lab nevertheless.

You can trust everything on the certificate except for the trade name that they give to the color. They’re pretty loose with that, especially for good customers.

I know their “pigeon blood” designation is loose but even looser for “good customers”? Shouldn’t matter who requested certificate, it’s about their integrity. Ah well.

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

That’s just not how they operate.

This one was done at the Silom Branch:

Interesting how this stone scored H rather than H(a), isn’t that meant to be rare these days?

 

[Dr_Diesel]

I know their “pigeon blood” designation is loose but even looser for “good customers”? Shouldn’t matter who requested certificate, it’s about their integrity. Ah well.

Welcome to the wonderful world of gemstones and certifications.

Lotus is more strict with their color grades.

In the end, these are businesses.

If you have high paying customers that bring you a lot of business and you start grading their stones so that they sell for less, those customers will go elsewhere.

if you give them color grades that command top-dollar, those customers will keep coming back.

That’s just how the cookie crumbles.

The bottom line is, take those color grades with a grain of salt. Use your own eyes and a reference stone if possible.

 

[Avondale]

Interesting how this stone scored H rather than H(a), isn’t that meant to be rare these days?

Residues are a given for heated Burmese rubies, but African ones still go through the traditional heating without borax.

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

If you tell them what color grade you want printed, and it’s anywhere close, that’s what they designate (if you are a good customer).

Is it a little bit crooked? Without a doubt, yes, it is. GRS is notorious for that. Welcome to the wonderful world of gemstones and certifications.

Lotus is more strict with their color grades.

In the end, these are businesses. If you have high paying customers, they bring you a lot of business and you start grading their stones so that they sell for less, those customers will go elsewhere if you give them color grades that command to dollar, those customers will keep coming back.

That’s just how the cookie crumbles.

Only thing GRS does better than Lotus or GIA: give out Mogok sub-designation for some stones.

Residues are a given for heated Burmese rubies, but African ones still go through the traditional heating without borax.

Why use Borax when it’s going to drop the gemstones’ values?

 

[Dr_Diesel]

Residues are a given for heated Burmese rubies, but African ones still go through the traditional heating without borax.

Thank you for answering that @Avondale!

You beat me to the punch!

 

[Dr_Diesel]

Only thing GRS does better than Lotus or GIA: give out Mogok sub-designation for some stones.

Why use Borax when it’s going to drop the gemstones’ values?

They get heated in large batches, and most of the stones in those batches will have cracks and fissures. Borax helps heal them.

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

They get heated in large batches, and most of the stones in those batches will have cracks and fissures. Borax helps heal them.

Thank you for explaining.

 

[VividRed]

Only thing GRS does better than Lotus or GIA: give out Mogok sub-designation for some stones.



Why use Borax when it’s going to drop the gemstones’ values?

Borax is needed to lower the melting temperature of corundum, which will heal internal fractures without melting the whole stone. Healed fractures are essentially minute areas of synthetic corundum

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

Borax is needed to lower the melting temperature of corundum, which will heal internal fractures without melting the whole stone. Healed fractures are essentially minute areas of synthetic corundum

Mozambique rubies tend to have less of those internal fractures?

 

[Avondale]

Mozambique rubies tend to have less of those internal fractures?

As far as I'm aware, yes.

The process of heating with borax was developed for the treatment of Mong Hsu rubies. They have two distinct qualities: 1. they have blue sapphire cores that go away with heating, and 2. they're quite fractured and unsuitable for faceting.

The borax doesn't exactly lower the melting temperature, but it acts as a solvent. It dissolves the corundum under high temperature. This way, where you used to have a crack, fissure, cavity and so on, now you have dissolved corundum. And as it cools, it recrystalises. The chemical process leaves glass residues, which is what is measured by labs when evaluating such stones.

Greenland rubies are also all treated with borax for the exact same reason - their deposit is very old and time has left its mark, the rough is heavily fractured.

The whole point is, where you used to have rough unsuitable for faceting, you now have stable rough that has had its fractures healed. That's material you can sell and make money on, instead of a bunch of fragile gravel. It's no wonder that was done for Burmese rubies, considering how sought after they are.

 

[Autumn in New England]

Slightly O/T, but one thing I like about GRS ruby reports is they note medium-strong fluorescence when present (in the newer reports).

 

[Dr_Diesel]

Mozambique rubies tend to have less of those internal fractures?

From what I understand, trivalent chromium (Cr +3) tends to disrupt crystal formation and cause fractures, perhaps due to its highly polar structure.

For whatever reason, and I don’t fully understand the chemistry behind this, the co-occurrence of ferric iron (Fe +3) not only quenches fluorescence, it also seems to stabilize crystal structure.

As a consequence, deeper red rubies and spinels tend to be much cleaner. For example, the one in the certificate that I posted is quite deep red and shows weak fluorescence, but it’s near flawless and has an extremely crystalline appearance.

Trivalent chromium is missing three electrons from its cloud and is therefore somewhat unstable. When a photon of light is absorbed by one of these chromium ions, the existing electrons become excited and jump to one of the empty orbits in the electron cloud. When that excited electron drops back down to its stable state, it releases a photon of energy and produces fluorescence. In this way, highly fluorescent stones are very much “alive” in the sense that they are moving or “vibrating” at the subatomic level when exposed to UV light.

When ferric iron is also present, it acts as a sink for that energy as it is absorbed by Fe +3 instead of released as a photon of light.

This is where the chemistry gets a little fuzzy for me:

As I understand it (and take this with a grain of salt, as I may be wrong), this phenomenon also stabilizes crystal structure.

This is part of why extremely fluorescent rubies and spinels are very commonly included and cracked.

I’m sure there’s more to it than just this, so maybe somebody out there understands this phenomenon better and can explain it more accurately.

 

[Autumn in New England]

From what I understand, trivalent chromium (Cr +3) tends to disrupt crystal formation and cause fractures, perhaps due to its highly polar structure.

For whatever reason, and I don’t fully understand the chemistry behind this, the co-occurrence of ferric iron (Fe +3) not only quenches fluorescence, it also seems to stabilize crystal structure.

As a consequence, deeper red rubies and spinels tend to be much cleaner. For example, the one in the certificate that I posted is quite deep red and shows weak fluorescence, but it’s near flawless and has an extremely crystalline appearance.

Trivalent chromium is missing three electrons from its cloud and is therefore somewhat unstable. When a photon of light is absorbed by one of these chromium ions, the existing electrons become excited and jump to one of the empty orbits in the electron cloud. When that excited electron drops back down to its stable state, it releases a photon of energy and produces fluorescence. In this way, highly fluorescent stones are very much “alive” in the sense that they are moving or “vibrating” at the subatomic level when exposed to UV light.

When ferric (Fe +3) iron is also present, it acts as a sink for that energy as it is absorbed by Fe +3 instead of released as a photon of light.

This is where the chemistry gets a little fuzzy for me:

As I understand it (and take this with a grain of salt, as I may be wrong), this phenomenon is also stabilizes crystal structure.

This is part of why extremely fluorescent rubies and spinels are very commonly included and cracked.

I’m sure there’s more to it than just this, but maybe somebody out there understands this phenomenon better and can explain it more completely.

And this is why I love our PS community.

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

As far as I'm aware, yes.

The process of heating with borax was developed for the treatment of Mong Hsu rubies. They have two distinct qualities: 1. they have blue sapphire cores that go away with heating, and 2. they're quite fractured and unsuitable for faceting.

The borax doesn't exactly lower the melting temperature, but it acts as a solvent. It dissolves the corundum under high temperature. This way, where you used to have a crack, fissure, cavity and so on, now you have dissolved corundum. And as it cools, it recrystalises. The chemical process leaves glass residues, which is what is measured by labs when evaluating such stones.

Greenland rubies are also all treated with borax for the exact same reason - their deposit is very old and time has left its mark, the rough is heavily fractured.

The whole point is, where you used to have rough unsuitable for faceting, you now have stable rough that has had its fractures healed. That's material you can sell and make money on, instead of a bunch of fragile gravel. It's no wonder that was done for Burmese rubies, considering how sought after they are.

Thank you for mini-lecture!

Slightly O/T, but one thing I like about GRS ruby reports is they note medium-strong fluorescence when present (in the newer reports).

For African rubies, yes. An important point.

From what I understand, trivalent chromium (Cr +3) tends to disrupt crystal formation and cause fractures, perhaps due to its highly polar structure.

For whatever reason, and I don’t fully understand the chemistry behind this, the co-occurrence of ferric iron (Fe +3) not only quenches fluorescence, it also seems to stabilize crystal structure.

As a consequence, deeper red rubies and spinels tend to be much cleaner. For example, the one in the certificate that I posted is quite deep red and shows weak fluorescence, but it’s near flawless and has an extremely crystalline appearance.

Trivalent chromium is missing three electrons from its cloud and is therefore somewhat unstable. When a photon of light is absorbed by one of these chromium ions, the existing electrons become excited and jump to one of the empty orbits in the electron cloud. When that excited electron drops back down to its stable state, it releases a photon of energy and produces fluorescence. In this way, highly fluorescent stones are very much “alive” in the sense that they are moving or “vibrating” at the subatomic level when exposed to UV light.

When ferric iron is also present, it acts as a sink for that energy as it is absorbed by Fe +3 instead of released as a photon of light.

This is where the chemistry gets a little fuzzy for me:

As I understand it (and take this with a grain of salt, as I may be wrong), this phenomenon also stabilizes crystal structure.

This is part of why extremely fluorescent rubies and spinels are very commonly included and cracked.

I’m sure there’s more to it than just this, so maybe somebody out there understands this phenomenon better and can explain it more accurately.

Sounds like as much particle physics as chemistry. But it’s so cool.

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

Way out of my league and not liking it too much myself but a cool eye candy , a 5ct Mozambique ruby priced at $300K

https://imgur.com/a/i3eP4Zf

 

[Autumn in New England]

Way out of my league and not liking it too much myself but a cool eye candy , a 5ct Mozambique ruby priced at $300K

https://imgur.com/a/i3eP4Zf

Yeah, a little darker and more purple than ideal, but great clarity (she's windowed, but rubies, especially large ones, tend to lack fine cutting). The Montepuez region has 2 distinct mining areas... Maninge Nice and Muglotto. I'm willing to bet this guy came from the latter and has weak fluorescence.

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

Yeah, a little darker and more purple than ideal, but great clarity (she's windowed, but rubies, especially large ones, tend to lack fine cutting). The Montepuez region has 2 distinct mining areas... Maninge Nice and Muglotto. I'm willing to bet this guy came from the latter and has weak fluorescence.

Thank you. It is hard enough telling the difference between Mogok and Monghsu in Burma, know nothing of Mozambique ruby regions.

 

[Autumn in New England]

Thank you. It is hard enough telling the difference between Mogok and Monghsu in Burma, know nothing of Mozambique ruby regions.

Maninge Nice rubies tend to be the ones that more closely resemble Burmese... you can find medium tone, vivid saturation, and stronger fluorescence. The cool thing is they also tend to be a truer red than Burmese (which can veer pink). Muglotto tend to look more like Thai rubies... darker tone caused by a higher iron content, which in turn quenches the fluorescence.

 

[Dr_Diesel]

Maninge Nice rubies tend to be the ones that more closely resemble Burmese... you can find medium tone, vivid saturation, and stronger fluorescence. The cool thing is they also tend to be a truer red than Burmese (which can veer pink). Muglotto tend to look more like Thai rubies... darker tone caused by a higher iron content, which in turn quenches the fluorescence.

I absolutely love my (Heated) Mugloto ruby because it is so clean, crisp, brilliant and the color is such a pure, intense red. The rough from Mugloto tends to be deeper and blockier, so it allows for much more effective cutting. Also, because I used it for a man's ring, I think the really deep but super pure red seems to really work well, especially with the black metal.

The first photo is is strong lighting with traditional black Rhodium. Yes, it really does look like in good lighting.


The following photos were taken in indirect light from a north-facing window on a dark, cloudy day (today) after getting "super black" ruthenium plating. They give a better sense of how it looks in lower light conditions:

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

Maninge Nice rubies tend to be the ones that more closely resemble Burmese... you can find medium tone, vivid saturation, and stronger fluorescence. The cool thing is they also tend to be a truer red than Burmese (which can veer pink). Muglotto tend to look more like Thai rubies... darker tone caused by a higher iron content, which in turn quenches the fluorescence.

So Maninge Nice rubies are the more expensive ones among Mozambique stones I imagine.

I absolutely love my (Heated) Mugloto ruby because it is so clean, crisp, brilliant and the color is such a pure, intense red. The rough from Mugloto tends to be deeper and blockier, so it allows for much more effective cutting. Also, because I used it for a man's ring, I think the really deep but super pure red seems to really work well, especially with the black metal.

The first photo is is strong lighting with traditional black Rhodium. Yes, it really does look like in good lighting.


The following photos were taken in indirect light from a north-facing window on a dark, cloudy day (today) after getting "super black" ruthenium plating. They give a better sense of how it looks in lower light conditions:

The colour against strong light is just beautiful!

 

[Bron357]

I absolutely love my (Heated) Mugloto ruby because it is so clean, crisp, brilliant and the color is such a pure, intense red. The rough from Mugloto tends to be deeper and blockier, so it allows for much more effective cutting. Also, because I used it for a man's ring, I think the really deep but super pure red seems to really work well, especially with the black metal.

The first photo is is strong lighting with traditional black Rhodium. Yes, it really does look like in good lighting.


The following photos were taken in indirect light from a north-facing window on a dark, cloudy day (today) after getting "super black" ruthenium plating. They give a better sense of how it looks in lower light conditions:

Wow, what a stunning ring. Love every element of it.

 

[Dr_Diesel]

So Maninge Nice rubies are the more expensive ones among Mozambique stones I imagine.

Not necessarily. It all depends on the attributes of the individual stone.

While Maninge Nice material is generally a bit lighter and tone and shows stronger fluorescence, they also tend to be more included.

Most people don’t differentiate between the two regions anyway. Certificates don’t really get any more specific than Mozambique.

This particular stone is pretty clearly classic Mugloto material in terms of its size, tone, fluorescence and the fact that it’s near flawless under a microscope.

If we’re thinking in terms of origin, each of them has their trade-offs.

… And of course, all locations have been known to produce exceptional gems and less-than-exceptional ones as well.

So, again, price is typically dictated by the traits of the individual specimen.

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

Not necessarily. It all depends on the attributes of the individual stone.

While Maninge Nice material is generally a bit lighter and tone and shows stronger fluorescence, they also tend to be more included.

Most people don’t differentiate between the two regions anyway. Certificates don’t really get any more specific than Mozambique.

This particular stone is pretty clearly classic Mugloto material in terms of its size, tone, fluorescence and the fact that it’s near flawless under a microscope.

If we’re thinking in terms of origin, each of them has their trade-offs.

… And of course, all locations have been known to produce exceptional gems and less-than-exceptional ones as well.

So, again, price is typically dictated by the traits of the individual specimen.

I still have much to learn.

 

[Autumn in New England]

I absolutely love my (Heated) Mugloto ruby because it is so clean, crisp, brilliant and the color is such a pure, intense red. The rough from Mugloto tends to be deeper and blockier, so it allows for much more effective cutting. Also, because I used it for a man's ring, I think the really deep but super pure red seems to really work well, especially with the black metal.

The first photo is is strong lighting with traditional black Rhodium. Yes, it really does look like in good lighting.


The following photos were taken in indirect light from a north-facing window on a dark, cloudy day (today) after getting "super black" ruthenium plating. They give a better sense of how it looks in lower light conditions:

This is one of, if not THE, most handsome men's rings I've ever seen. And I can understand why you love that stone so much. It's deeper in tone, but sooo red and brilliant!!

 

[VividRed]

I still have much to learn.

Don’t we all and that’s what’s fun about gems, or anything for that matter, isn’t it?

I have a Mugloto ruby I purchased from Inken, the picture is still on her website

1.10 ct Unheated Mozambique Ruby, AGL — Enhoerning Jewelry

www.enhoerning-jewelry.com

And here is one I took. It fluoresces but not like my other Burmese rubies.

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

Don’t we all and that’s what’s fun about gems, or anything for that matter, isn’t it?

I have a Mugloto ruby I purchased from Inken, the picture is still on her website

1.10 ct Unheated Mozambique Ruby, AGL — Enhoerning Jewelry

www.enhoerning-jewelry.com

And here is one I took. It fluoresces but not like my other Burmese rubies.

That’s a beautiful gem! If its fluorescence isn’t like your Burmese rubies, the Burmese ones must be spectacular indeed.

 

[Dr_Diesel]

This is one of, if not THE, most handsome men's rings I've ever seen. And I can understand why you love that stone so much. It's deeper in tone, but sooo red and brilliant!!

Such high praise! Thank you!

I sketched that ring years ago and it finally came into being in 2024. It was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend about the flying buttresses of Notre Dame.

Figuring out the geometry in three dimensions was a little tricky. I got really lucky in finding a CAD designer (actually, two CAD designers) who could help me translate my 2-D drawings into a 3-D reality.

It took a few revisions, but we finally got there.

I’m really happy with how it turned out.

 

[Sydneyphoenix]

Such high praise! Thank you!

I sketched that ring years ago and it finally came into being in 2024. It was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend about the flying buttresses of Notre Dame.

Figuring out the geometry in three dimensions was a little tricky. I got really lucky in finding a CAD designer (actually, two CAD designers) who could help me translate my 2-D drawings into a 3-D reality.

It took a few revisions, but we finally got there.

I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Can’t wait to get my ruby and turn it into Narya from the LOTR.