Red stone question - ruby and spinel

[Spoozella]

Hi everyone,

I am a longtime lurker who is trying to educate myself about the factors that affect the pricing of the red stones, specifically ruby and spinel. I have found your collective knowledge very helpful in trying to educate myself on this topic.

Having read previous posts detailing pricing in the $thousands/ct for both these stones, I am wondering if anyone could let me know what it is about the following two stones that explains their seemingly low pricing? Not looking to buy either of them at this point, but just trying to get an idea of what is out there and why it is priced the way it is.

I noted that the vendor is one that a lot of PSers seemed to have had good experiences with in the past.

https://www.litnon.com/index.php?page=viewgem&id=10961

https://www.litnon.com/index.php?page=viewgem&id=11583

Thanks!

 

[Desertrose]

The Tanzanian ruby is lower priced because of the inclusions. They are typical for this locale, and maybe you could set it so that they are covered up. It's also not a pure red stone.

The Mahenge spinel doesn't have any obvious issues. However for both of them I'd request a photos and/or video so that you can see them in natural daylight, not just studio lighting.

 

[T L]

Ruby - both inclusions and brownish red color.

Spinel - brownish red

 

[lovedogs]

I like both of them. the reason the ruby is priced lower is because of the inclusions, one of which looks blackish on the right side. But that means you are paying much less for a nicely colored stone. I'd personally ask for videos or pictures of both stones together to compare the color. It's always hard for me to compare colors between different pics.

 

[Spoozella]

Thanks so much for the helpful replies

 

[voce]

I bought a very similar Tanzanian spinel from that same vendor. The color was as spectacularly red as he says, not brown as T L suspects, but there was just no fluorescence. UV fluorescence is something to value in red stones.

 

[Spoozella]

Would someone be able to post an example of a red stone that they think doesn’t have a brown modifier? I’m not sure if it is just my monitor, but many of the stones others have posted here as red actually look a bit pinkish to me.

 

[voce]

Top left: red garnet in YG, brown modifier
Below garnet: red spinel in WG, no brown modifier
Bottom right relative to spinel: ruby in WG, no brown modifier

 

[voce]

These spinels imo have a brown (top 2) modifier or gray (bottom 2) modifier.

Also note that a lot of cameras pick up what the eye sees to be red as pink.

 

[Spoozella]

Thanks, it’s very helpful to see that comparison

 

[qubitasaurus]

There are plenty here

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/show-us-your-mahenge-spinels.138168/

There is also 2-3 show me you're red stones/red-threads here in CS. Once you see some stones with no brown in them it should be easy to split them all into 'brown'', 'a little brown' and 'no-brown'.