Red Ruby Color

[Pumpkinsparkles]

I purchased a ruby ring as Natural but it’s unlike my Burmese ruby pendant . It doesn’t fluoresce pink or at all under a mild black light. My Burmese Ruby Glows pink immediately. But in some angles it has an orange tint? Any ideas ? Thanks.

 

[voce]

That looks like a red spinel to me, not ruby. Burmese rubies don't have an orange modifier, but some Burmese spinels (flame spinels) do, as do some red spinels from Mahenge, Tanzania. Most jewelers aren't well educated on colored stones, so unless they specialize in colored stones, or unless the gem already comes with a lab report from AGL or GIA, I don't trust what they claim. They may really believe they are representing what they are selling correctly, but the truth is another thing entirely from belief. How long ago did you buy it, and what did you pay for the stone? I hope you didn't pay ruby prices for red spinel.

 

[Bron357]

Unless your ruby came with a reputable lab report it may not be a natural, heat only ruby.
Not only are rubies potentially highly treated (glass filled) there are a few types of synthetic ruby produced.
sometimes people use a Presidum gem tester to identify gems and while such a device can tell the difference between say red glass, red garnet and ruby, it can’t tell if the gem is natural from the earth or a synthetic. Synthetic ruby is the exact same chemical composition as natural ruby, except grown in a lab.
and the price difference is huge, a natural ruby will cost thousands per carat, a synthetic under $20.
so depending on the price paid, it would be wise to get a lab report for it to ensure you weren’t sold a synthetic stone.
it could also be spinel, a less valuable gem, however this gem too is also created synthetically so again, a lab report can determine this.

 

[Pumpkinsparkles]

I didn't pay Ruby price , it was from an elderly couple getting rid of some things to move across country. She said it wasn’t a Burmese Ruby, but a Thai Ruby. I just no it’s nothing like my vintage Burmese Pendant.

 

[voce]

Have a trusted jeweler send it in to GIA or AGL for identification to give you peace of mind.

 

[Niel]

I thought the same thing. Looks like a spinel

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

I didn't pay Ruby price , it was from an elderly couple getting rid of some things to move across country. She said it wasn’t a Burmese Ruby, but a Thai Ruby. I just no it’s nothing like my vintage Burmese Pendant.

im sure they sold it to you in good faith. if the price was reasonable id be very happy with it
im not a red person but its a very beautiful colour and perfect for this time of year

i just hope it turns out to be at least worth what you paid for it

if you sat beside me on the train wearing that ring i would definatly compliment you on it

 

[Pumpkinsparkles]

im sure they sold it to you in good faith. if the price was reasonable id be very happy with it
im not a red person but its a very beautiful colour and perfect for this time of year

i just hope it turns out to be at least worth what you paid for it

if you sat beside me on the train wearing that ring i would definatly compliment you on it

That’s the nicest thing anyone on here has said to me, even if it was lab made I have grown attached and the color is what captivated me.
Thank you for your response, it made my day which wasn’t going so well. Thank you

 

[Bron357]

Sorry I didn’t mean to sound horrible. Sometimes people pay big money for items but have been misled and that’s certainly not good.
there is absolutely nothing wrong with synthetic gems, they are beautiful and look exactly like natural ones. I have some wonderful synthetic gems which I love.
I just hate the thought of an unwary or inexperienced buyer spending thousands of dollars on a piece of jewellery not worth thousands of dollars.

 

[Pumpkinsparkles]

Sorry I didn’t mean to sound horrible. Sometimes people pay big money for items but have been misled and that’s certainly not good.
there is absolutely nothing wrong with synthetic gems, they are beautiful and look exactly like natural ones. I have some wonderful synthetic gems which I love.
I just hate the thought of an unwary or inexperienced buyer spending thousands of dollars on a piece of jewellery not worth thousands of dollars.

Your absolutely right, I understood what you meant that’s okay.
I do need to get it tested if I’m concerned about it. Thank Goodness I didn’t pay an arm and a leg for the piece. Thank you for your response it was quite helpful.


Yourbright

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

That’s the nicest thing anyone on here has said to me, even if it was lab made I have grown attached and the color is what captivated me.
Thank you for your response, it made my day which wasn’t going so well. Thank you

your very welcome
your screen name makes me smilie every time i read one of your posts
i hope your day got better

 

[Sibsgirl]

I've recently been digging into ruby fluorescence, and from what I've read, Thai rubies don't fluoresce much if at all. It might be worth some research!

 

[JewelledEscalators]

So what did the red stone turn out to be? Did you get it tested? Pretty ring.

 

[PrecisionGem]

One certainly couldn't separate ruby from spinel from a photograph. The color is totally in line for ruby by the way. Here is a chart showing red/orange rubies. I would think if your photo is accurate yours would be around 3_5_5

 

[JewelledEscalators]

>PrecisionGem,

Interesting picture. For all the talk about spinels being the closest in appearance to ruby, I've never seen a 'ruby red' spinel because all the red spinels I've seen have a somewhat orangeish tone to them, whereas I've seen plenty of rubies with orangeish tones.

I have a red ruby ring and a red spinel ring, and the ruby is never mistaken for a spinel, whilst the spinel is occasionally mistaken for a ruby, even though it being a Tanzanian neon pink/orange red spinel, I can't see how. I've been told by a jeweller that they have seen ruby/sapphires the colour of the spinel. I find that hard to believe, but admittedly, I've not seen enough red spinels in person, being based in Europe.

Have you seen any 'ruby red' spinels that don't have any orange tone to them, say like a crimson colour?

 

[voce]

>PrecisionGem,

Interesting picture. For all the talk about spinels being the closest in appearance to ruby, I've never seen a 'ruby red' spinel because all the red spinels I've seen have a somewhat orangeish tone to them, whereas I've seen plenty of rubies with orangeish tones.

I have a red ruby ring and a red spinel ring, and the ruby is never mistaken for a spinel, whilst the spinel is occasionally mistaken for a ruby, even though it being a Tanzanian neon pink/orange red spinel, I can't see how. I've been told by a jeweller that they have seen ruby/sapphires the colour of the spinel. I find that hard to believe, but admittedly, I've not seen enough red spinels in person, being based in Europe.

Have you seen any 'ruby red' spinels that don't have any orange tone to them, say like a crimson colour?

There is absolutely no orange in this red spinel from Burma I own.



Nor in this red spinel cab, either.



Top ring on middle finger is a reddish pink spinel that's not close to the 3 rubies. The three rubies are from Burma, Tanzania, and Mozambique. I would say the red spinel on the very right and which I provided a photo of by itself above is ruby-like in color.

 

[JewelledEscalators]

Hi Voce, Thanks.

I agree that the spinel in the first picture is ruby-like in color, as in it looks like it could be a ruby, but not quite what I mean by 'ruby red' as in red red, like crimson red, though I know that most rubies don't tend to be red red. The spinel in the second photo looks like it has a slightly orangey tone on one monitor, but doesn't on my other monitor and looks more like a pinkish red with no orange. The Tazanian ruby to me looks red.

You are so lucky to have so many beautiful rings - as somebody who loves red and pink stones, I would be in heaven with these. Particulary the spinel in the first pic and the two rubies (Burmese and the Tazanian). The Burmese ruby and the spinel in the first picture looks very similar lin colour, but the ruby has a velvety feel and strong flourescence I tend to associate with rubies and the spinel has the crystal-like look I tend to associate with spinels. It's great to see such an example of ruby and spinel that is close in colour and size with each showing off qualities that they are known for.

 

[voce]

@JewelledEscalatorsPlease I think everyone has a different idea of what a "ruby red" really is. My Tanzanian ruby (also my engagement ring) is my ideal red, although by RGB pixel analysis, there's some orange in it (green value in RGB). The orange is very well balanced against purple/pink (blue value in RGB), and red dominates.

After having seen some more rubies since I first picked out my engagement ring, I have revised my idea of what a ruby color is. Ruby red is a pinkish red, unless you specify pigeon blood, which is what I would consider crimson red. The UV fluorescence that is valued in rubies and spinels and makes them light up under low light conditions, make the stones look pinkish in broad daylight.

I'll let you know that at night, my Jedi spinel (the one featured in two photos) and my Mozambique ruby shine more than my Tanzanian ruby, and appear straight red red in the absence of UV.

The red spinel cab appears crimson to me, although as usual the camera has trouble picking up the intense saturation of the red.

 

[ChaiK]

This thread is interesting.

@voce, what colour do you see here? Same stone but at different points of the video, it looks slightly different in colour.

 

[voce]

@ChaiK on my current monitor...

Top photo, a neon orangish pink

Bottom photo, a cooler orangish red

I think it's a shifty spinel, but does have orange. Few if any sapphires will show the facets so clearly; I think this has to do with some crystal property that may be related to dichroism or the lack thereof?

 

[ChaiK]

Thank you so much for your opinion.

 

[JewelledEscalators]

@voce,

> I think everyone has a different idea of what a "ruby red" really is. After having seen some more rubies since I first picked out my engagement ring, I have revised my idea of what a ruby color is.

Yes, so true. Ruby is a strange one, we're taught that emeralds are green, sapphires are blue, and rubies are red, but in reality, most rubies are not red. Also, unlike blues and greens, when red is lighter, we call it pink, and most red gems seem to look purple or brown when they are very dark. I guess it is the way we understand colour in modern times. Red also seems to be a colour that people have strong personal preferences in.


>Ruby red is a pinkish red, unless you specify pigeon blood, which is what I would consider crimson red. The UV fluorescence that is valued in rubies and spinels and makes them light up under low light conditions, make the stones look pinkish in broad daylight.

This is what I find confusing myself. I thought intially pigeon blood red is a red with slightly purplish undertone, not crimson, which to my mind is a bluey-red in the sense that it has no orange, but with no purply tones. I am thinking of the Jubliee ruby being a good example of this pigeon blood red:

The Jubilee Ruby: Worthy of a King | Christie's

This April Christie’s New York presents the most important ruby of its caliber to be offered in the United States for over 25 years

www.christies.com

The crimson ruby I thoght of being a good exmple of crimson red, not pigeon blood - yet this too is said to be 'pigeon blood' red.

AN EXTRAORDINARY RUBY AND DIAMOND RING

www.christies.com

I have an African ruby ring, which I initially thought wasn't a ruby because it was too red red, and I didn't expect rubies to come in this kind of neon red, but it is in fact pink (fuchsia/mangenta) under certain lighting conditions. I think it is a pinkish red ruby that looks crimson red in most lightings, and this is perhaps the confusion (for me). Crimson red rubies are maybe pinkish red rubies that look red in most or many lighting conditions, and pigeon blood ones are similar in that they look dark mangenta/purplish in some lightings and look red under others.


>I'll let you know that at night, my Jedi spinel (the one featured in two photos) and my Mozambique ruby shine more than my Tanzanian ruby, and appear straight red red in the absence of UV.The red spinel cab appears crimson to me, although as usual the camera has trouble picking up the intense saturation of the red.

Yes I can believe that they appear red in the absence of UV - would love to see a photo of this but I guess it's too difficult because of the lighting issue. I find it impossible to capture the red of my ruby in photos. It either looks pink or orange.

In the end, I guess what really helps is seeing a lot of stones in real life, then one gets to better understand different colours of stones under different lightings.

Apologies if I sound like I'm rambling.

 

[voce]

@JewelledEscalatorsPlease I think your confusion is with the way the pigeon blood term has been applied and misappropriated by various vendors. Pigeon blood red, the finest red, is in my opinion a red red -- just look at its namesake, the red eye of a pigeon. I don't think there's purple in that.

Vendors that want to sell their goods, over time used the term to refer to lower quality goods, aka typical pinkish/purplish rubies that are more common from Burma.

I think these are good representations of the Jedi spinel and Mozambique ruby, without having UV light present.

 

[JewelledEscalators]

@voce,

Thanks - yes, they do look red as you say. Actually the spinel in the first picture looks like a very very slightly orangey red but then in the last one it looks more like a slightly pinkish red. Yet in other photos, it looked pink and not red! So I see what you mean.

I'm confused by the pigeon red also because as you said, it's often attributed to the red of the pigeons' eyes, but whilst it has no puprle to it, it's like a very orangey red, rather than pure red.

https://flic.kr/p/4rKAmV

 

[Nick_G]

@voce,

> I think everyone has a different idea of what a "ruby red" really is. After having seen some more rubies since I first picked out my engagement ring, I have revised my idea of what a ruby color is.

Yes, so true. Ruby is a strange one, we're taught that emeralds are green, sapphires are blue, and rubies are red, but in reality, most rubies are not red. Also, unlike blues and greens, when red is lighter, we call it pink, and most red gems seem to look purple or brown when they are very dark. I guess it is the way we understand colour in modern times. Red also seems to be a colour that people have strong personal preferences in.


>Ruby red is a pinkish red, unless you specify pigeon blood, which is what I would consider crimson red. The UV fluorescence that is valued in rubies and spinels and makes them light up under low light conditions, make the stones look pinkish in broad daylight.

This is what I find confusing myself. I thought intially pigeon blood red is a red with slightly purplish undertone, not crimson, which to my mind is a bluey-red in the sense that it has no orange, but with no purply tones. I am thinking of the Jubliee ruby being a good example of this pigeon blood red:

The Jubilee Ruby: Worthy of a King | Christie's

This April Christie’s New York presents the most important ruby of its caliber to be offered in the United States for over 25 years

www.christies.com

The crimson ruby I thoght of being a good exmple of crimson red, not pigeon blood - yet this too is said to be 'pigeon blood' red.

AN EXTRAORDINARY RUBY AND DIAMOND RING

www.christies.com

I have an African ruby ring, which I initially thought wasn't a ruby because it was too red red, and I didn't expect rubies to come in this kind of neon red, but it is in fact pink (fuchsia/mangenta) under certain lighting conditions. I think it is a pinkish red ruby that looks crimson red in most lightings, and this is perhaps the confusion (for me). Crimson red rubies are maybe pinkish red rubies that look red in most or many lighting conditions, and pigeon blood ones are similar in that they look dark mangenta/purplish in some lightings and look red under others.


>I'll let you know that at night, my Jedi spinel (the one featured in two photos) and my Mozambique ruby shine more than my Tanzanian ruby, and appear straight red red in the absence of UV.The red spinel cab appears crimson to me, although as usual the camera has trouble picking up the intense saturation of the red.

Yes I can believe that they appear red in the absence of UV - would love to see a photo of this but I guess it's too difficult because of the lighting issue. I find it impossible to capture the red of my ruby in photos. It either looks pink or orange.

In the end, I guess what really helps is seeing a lot of stones in real life, then one gets to better understand different colours of stones under different lightings.

Apologies if I sound like I'm rambling.

Sorry, I had to reply to this after watching that short video on the Jubilee Ruby. I'm not sure if they didn't do their research properly but this image shown in the video:

..is a selection of spinel crystals! As for the Jubilee Ruby itself it looked either purplish red or crimson red at different parts of the video, depending on the lighting and calibration of the equipment I suppose.

My preferred colour for ruby is the intense 'stoplight' red with excellent fluorescence in UV light, although I know a lot of people prefer the darker reds too.

I think spinels do often tend to have a very slightly more orange tinge to their redness, compared to rubies, but not always. I read a paper a couple of days ago that suggested that the orange colour in spinels is caused by small amounts of vanadium.

 

[JackTrick]

@voce,

Thanks - yes, they do look red as you say. Actually the spinel in the first picture looks like a very very slightly orangey red but then in the last one it looks more like a slightly pinkish red. Yet in other photos, it looked pink and not red! So I see what you mean.

I'm confused by the pigeon red also because as you said, it's often attributed to the red of the pigeons' eyes, but whilst it has no puprle to it, it's like a very orangey red, rather than pure red.

https://flic.kr/p/4rKAmV

depends on the species of pigeon!

 

[voce]

@JewelledEscalatorsPlease while it's true that sometimes pigeon eyes do look a tad orange, in the earliest days where vivid red ruby only came out of Burma (pre-modern times), there were no orange-red rubies. Hence pigeon blood mainly referred to a fine vivid red ruby.

After the vivid reds were mined out, you had more pinkish/purplish reds (Mong Hsu, Mozambique, Madagascar), and more orangish reds (spinels and rubies found in East Africa). I don't think there is an absolute one-to-one mapping of a word descriptor like pigeon blood to only one shade of red. I myself describe the stoplight reds as pigeon blood, yet even the stoplight reds, are only red in a particular lighting situation. No gem looks exactly the same in all lighting situations.

This is my favorite shade of red, yet it only comes out in noonday sunlight. And, the camera does not capture quite the same vividness my eyes see.


My ruby is from Tanzania, which has pinkish rubies, orangish rubies, and some smaller fraction of rubies like mine without noticeable modifiers.

 

[ChaiK]

@Nick_G , is the stoplight type of red the not sparkling but more velvety type with high flourescence?

Do you have an example of the type you like?

I love red and it is interesting to see these different types of red in a ruby or a spinel.

 

[ChaiK]

@JewelledEscalatorsPlease while it's true that sometimes pigeon eyes do look a tad orange, in the earliest days where vivid red ruby only came out of Burma (pre-modern times), there were no orange-red rubies. Hence pigeon blood mainly referred to a fine vivid red ruby.

After the vivid reds were mined out, you had more pinkish/purplish reds (Mong Hsu, Mozambique, Madagascar), and more orangish reds (spinels and rubies found in East Africa). I don't think there is an absolute one-to-one mapping of a word descriptor like pigeon blood to only one shade of red. I myself describe the stoplight reds as pigeon blood, yet even the stoplight reds, are only red in a particular lighting situation. No gem looks exactly the same in all lighting situations.

This is my favorite shade of red, yet it only comes out in noonday sunlight. And, the camera does not capture quite the same vividness my eyes see.


My ruby is from Tanzania, which has pinkish rubies, orangish rubies, and some smaller fraction of rubies like mine without noticeable modifiers.

I love this ring of yours, voce.

Is it velvety not the sparkling type of red but a very glowy type?

I see some rubies are sparkling and transparent but they lack the colour vividness of your ring here.

 

[voce]

I love this ring of yours, voce.

Is it velvety not the sparkling type of red but a very glowy type?

I see some rubies are sparkling and transparent but they don't have the colour vividness of your ring here.

Thank you, ChaiK!

Yes, I suppose it's more velvety than sparkling, though it's not the most velvety, such as that beautiful unheated blue sapphire @Lilith112 has.

I would say for sure that my spinels are more sparkling, and not very velvety.

I think that the stoplight red is a separate issue from velvety vs sparkling, and my Mozambique ruby and Jedi spinel, I would call stoplight red at night, even if the camera doesn't capture the color precisely as a stoplight red.