Ruby price drop

[lonewoodminer]

Gday all

Talking today with some good friends in the industry and they tell me there has been a big drop in the value of ruby. Has anyone else heard this? It seems someone in Chantaburi (sp?) has mastered heat treatment of the lower grade Madagascan ruby and flooded the local market with very good looking product. This heat treatment problem wont seem to go away! Guaranteed natural stone of any type must surely become more sought after in the future - in the meantime there may be some cheap, good looking ruby around soon if you dont mind it altered.

cheers
Andrew
www.aussiesapphire.com.au

 

[AGBF]

It''s funny that when a gem "needs" to be heated in order to have its standard color (as with tanzanite), the heating is OK. When it is done to a ruby it lessens the value. I always wanted a ruby that was *not* heat treated, so I am not pointing at anyone but myself. But there it is: it doesn''t make much sense, does it?

Deborah

 

[mogok]

Hello Loodwoodminer,
If you want to know more about the treatment you are speaking about, AIGS laboraotry has performed a complete study of the process after meeting the master burners in Chantaburi. For the first time a Thai burner accepted to speak about his treatment without pression.
Here is a link to AIGS laboratory page were you will find this article named: "lead glass filled rubies"
lead glass filled rubies

There are also several discussion ongoing about this treatment on AIGS forum:
ruby is it worth it?
diamonds vs rubies?

Now there was also for those who are interested a topic about history of treatments in Thailand:
heat treatment history in Thailand


All the best

 

[strmrdr]

There are several new treatments that came out recently and some that have been in wider use or atleast wider disclosure.

From what Iv read it means that there will be some nice looking affordable stones available but the price of the good colored untreated isnt coming down.

Ruby is kind of a wierd market to me with top notch looking lab goods available I dought low cost treated naturals is going to move the price of the top goods much.
They are allready priced taking into account lower cost good looking stones being available.

 

[imperial Jewels]

Hi Lonewood,

Yes, all of the above is true. I think much of the price drop in rubies is is likely to be the fact that the best color red Be-treated songea corundums are being mixed in with parcels of regular Madagascan ruby and are virtually indistinguishable.