Dr_Diesel
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2019
- Messages
- 568
I bought a heated, 1.54 ct Mozambique ruby from a friend in early 2018 (before ruby prices went totally bonkers).
Lotus Labs gave it the Trade color designation of “Fuchsia”: Slightly Purplish Red with Vivid Saturation, Medium Tone and strong fluorescence.
The vivid fuchsia is a unique kind of beauty. It’s neither the “trade ideal” pigeon blood color, and also decidedly different from pink sapphire. Another “Unicorn” trait IMO.
I snapped it up because of its incredible material, but the “meh” (and slightly windowed) native cut “roval” always kind of irked me. It wasn’t bad…but I just despise unintentional windows. I love open cutlets, but I hate windows….and the light return wasn’t great either.
I never really got over it.
In 2021, I sent it to a well-known cutter for “evaluation” and he confidently said “I can make this into a gorgeous round.” He then (arrogantly) proceeded to recut it into a different kind of wonky roval that was still windowed but now absolutely HIDEOUS…and 0.30cts lighter.
I felt sick. I wished I had never sent it for recutting - or at least wish that he would have had the humility to acknowledge that he couldn’t improve it and just left it alone. I was mad as hell.
Now, I couldn’t even stand to look at it anymore. I “tried” to like it…but it just made me feel sick every time I looked at it.
In 2022, I sent it to a different cutter to cut a precision round. He tried to keep it above 1ct and succeeded…1.03ct…but the sacrifices he made to do so created terrible extinction under the table: a dark center with a bright “Ring of death” around the crown facets.
It wasn’t terrible in diffuse lighting (below), but it was horrible in direct lighting (above)
I came to despise the stone and just wanted to get rid of it. I thought maybe someone else might appreciate it. Maybe it was just me? Maybe it was tainted in my mind because of the whole story. Nope. Someone else looked at it and had the same reaction.
One day, I was talking to a friend who’s been cutting stones for a couple of years and has developed rather impressive skill IMO. She is quite humble and was scared to touch it because she’d never cut a high-value stone before.
…and I gave her full authority to do ANYTHING she wanted. At this point, if it went “pop” on the wheel and disintegrated, I couldn’t have cared less.
So, we went “all in”.
It was a very bold (and arguably expensive) experiment, but there was nothing left to lose.
I had to change the narrative around this stone - even if that just meant allowing a friend to take her first crack at cutting a ruby with no liability.
She was remarkably meticulous in her approach. She developed a custom cut using GEMCAD & GEMRAY that optimized light performance in this material.
She warned me however: Design is one thing. Execution is another. I neither expected much nor did I care at that point.
…but the results were nothing less than astonishing.
It dipped a little below the (NON-) magical 1ct mark but now the combination of vivid color saturation, open tone, strong fluorescence and optimized light performance just came together in a miraculous way.
The lapidary simply said “it glows like a mythical object.”
It’s now a perfect 6.2mm round with a faceted girdle and the scale teeters between 0.94 and 0.95ct.
…and I couldn’t be happier! She transformed the stone from something I couldn’t stand to look at to one of my all-time favorites.
It never goes dark and I just can’t describe what happens in sunlight. It’s… other-worldly.
The hand shot is the most accurate representation, but IRL it’s MORE neon. Way more.
In low lighting, it has a very slightly purplish red body color and in dim, warm lighting it goes true red.
youtube.com
youtube.com
This was a crazy experiment that went shockingly well - and I’m certain I’ll never see anything like this again.
Nowadays, rubies are just waaaay too expensive to engage in such madness or risk any weight loss whatsoever.
In the end, I’m totally thrilled that we pulled out all the stops and made an unwavering commitment to quality over quantity.
The result? A bonafide Unicorn.
The question now is…what the heck do I do with it ???
Can you help???
For starters, here’s a (terrible) photo of it flanked by 5mm IRB diamonds (which I think are too big, but they were available for a photo…)
Lotus Labs gave it the Trade color designation of “Fuchsia”: Slightly Purplish Red with Vivid Saturation, Medium Tone and strong fluorescence.
The vivid fuchsia is a unique kind of beauty. It’s neither the “trade ideal” pigeon blood color, and also decidedly different from pink sapphire. Another “Unicorn” trait IMO.
I snapped it up because of its incredible material, but the “meh” (and slightly windowed) native cut “roval” always kind of irked me. It wasn’t bad…but I just despise unintentional windows. I love open cutlets, but I hate windows….and the light return wasn’t great either.
I never really got over it.
In 2021, I sent it to a well-known cutter for “evaluation” and he confidently said “I can make this into a gorgeous round.” He then (arrogantly) proceeded to recut it into a different kind of wonky roval that was still windowed but now absolutely HIDEOUS…and 0.30cts lighter.
I felt sick. I wished I had never sent it for recutting - or at least wish that he would have had the humility to acknowledge that he couldn’t improve it and just left it alone. I was mad as hell.
Now, I couldn’t even stand to look at it anymore. I “tried” to like it…but it just made me feel sick every time I looked at it.
In 2022, I sent it to a different cutter to cut a precision round. He tried to keep it above 1ct and succeeded…1.03ct…but the sacrifices he made to do so created terrible extinction under the table: a dark center with a bright “Ring of death” around the crown facets.
It wasn’t terrible in diffuse lighting (below), but it was horrible in direct lighting (above)
I came to despise the stone and just wanted to get rid of it. I thought maybe someone else might appreciate it. Maybe it was just me? Maybe it was tainted in my mind because of the whole story. Nope. Someone else looked at it and had the same reaction.
One day, I was talking to a friend who’s been cutting stones for a couple of years and has developed rather impressive skill IMO. She is quite humble and was scared to touch it because she’d never cut a high-value stone before.
…and I gave her full authority to do ANYTHING she wanted. At this point, if it went “pop” on the wheel and disintegrated, I couldn’t have cared less.
So, we went “all in”.
It was a very bold (and arguably expensive) experiment, but there was nothing left to lose.
I had to change the narrative around this stone - even if that just meant allowing a friend to take her first crack at cutting a ruby with no liability.
She was remarkably meticulous in her approach. She developed a custom cut using GEMCAD & GEMRAY that optimized light performance in this material.
She warned me however: Design is one thing. Execution is another. I neither expected much nor did I care at that point.
…but the results were nothing less than astonishing.
It dipped a little below the (NON-) magical 1ct mark but now the combination of vivid color saturation, open tone, strong fluorescence and optimized light performance just came together in a miraculous way.
The lapidary simply said “it glows like a mythical object.”
It’s now a perfect 6.2mm round with a faceted girdle and the scale teeters between 0.94 and 0.95ct.
…and I couldn’t be happier! She transformed the stone from something I couldn’t stand to look at to one of my all-time favorites.
It never goes dark and I just can’t describe what happens in sunlight. It’s… other-worldly.
The hand shot is the most accurate representation, but IRL it’s MORE neon. Way more.
In low lighting, it has a very slightly purplish red body color and in dim, warm lighting it goes true red.
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
youtube.com
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
youtube.com
This was a crazy experiment that went shockingly well - and I’m certain I’ll never see anything like this again.
Nowadays, rubies are just waaaay too expensive to engage in such madness or risk any weight loss whatsoever.
In the end, I’m totally thrilled that we pulled out all the stops and made an unwavering commitment to quality over quantity.
The result? A bonafide Unicorn.
The question now is…what the heck do I do with it ???
Can you help???
For starters, here’s a (terrible) photo of it flanked by 5mm IRB diamonds (which I think are too big, but they were available for a photo…)
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