Red sapphire or ruby?

[Shijitake]

I bought the red sapphire from Precision Gem because a red sapphire felt so unique. And this is a real red sapphire, not like my BE treated one. I asked Gene what makes it a red sapphire instead of a ruby and he said he thinks it's too shifty to be a ruby, but others may consider it so. What do you think? Would you say it's a red sapphire or ruby? I took pics of it in 3 or 4 different light settings and hope to get some pictures of it in other lighting and outside its box some time.

Also, how do I change my user name? I want to change it to something else.

Sorry about the terrible pics. The blurry ones represent the real color best.

 

[Bron357]

They say a gemstone being a ruby or sapphire depends if you’re the seller or buyer. A seller prefers a ruby label $$$$ and the buyer prefers a sapphire label $$!
Does the gem have fluorescence?
I think it’s when the main hue isn’t “red” that it gets called a sapphire but I think it’s a thin and subjective line. I’ve seen Rubies I’d be more inclined to think as pink sapphires yet they have a ruby label.
Maybe your red sapphire is leaning towards the orange / brownish so doesn’t get called a ruby?
Sending to a lab like AGL or Swiss Lab would give you their opinion of colour/hue/tone. They use a fancy computer spectrometer to analyze the hue and tone.

 

[JackTrick]

I don’t think I’d ever use “red sapphire” as a term, unless I was referring to a ruby.

I’d probably call a stone like yours a color shift sapphire, that goes pink, red, and orange.

 

[qubitasaurus]

I think I might personally avoid that terminology as it has some connotations of treated. But looking at some of the colour ways I'd be comfortable calling it an orange sapphire

Red Sapphire: Sunset Ruby or Orange-Red Sapphire - GemSelect

Is there such a thing as red sapphire? Sapphire can be any color but red corundum is defined as ruby in the world of gems. However, there are exceptions, l...

www.gemselect.com

 

[fredflintstone]

I would say a red sapphire. Though some rubies have an orange component in them, this one has a little too much. But pictures can be misleading even with the most honest effort. It reminds me of red Songea sapphire, which is heated with heat only. But in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Songea produced a lot of sapphire that was particularly susceptible to BE treatment (beryllium treatment) which now those stones are pretty much mined out.


The western world and the eastern world have two different definitions for ruby. What we would call a pink sapphire, many in Asia would call a ruby. Though many Asian dealers have adhered more to what the western world calls ruby, as the west is a large market and they want to move stones.

 

[voce]

How fascinating, it seems to shift between red and orange. I think when it shifts orange, it's too orange to be called ruby. I think Gene is right, but I would also lab in favor of calling it a color change sapphire.

 

[LD]

I would definitely call that a sapphire as it certainly has some earthy tones in a few of the pictures which would match Gene's evaluation that it's more likely a colour shifting sapphire. I believe the difference between a colour shift and colour change is that a colour shift moves to the next colour on the colour wheel whereas a colour changer jumps right across the wheel. I love colour shifting sapphires as they fascinate me. Enjoy all the different personailities of your lovely new gemstone.