As a highly precious and coveted gemstone, ruby signifies intensity of emotions and pride with its brilliant luster and bright color. Although it’s hard to measure the value of its sheer magnificence, there are subjective factors like cut, color, and clarity that help to determine the price of this gemstone.
Remember, rubies are always loved for their immaculate beauty rarity that comes with vivid color saturation. Any difference in color, clarity, or size can leave a deep impact on its overall pricing. You may not be a connoisseur of gems but this ruby gems pricing guide will help you to find the best stone at the most appropriate price.
What Factors Affect the Price of Ruby?
Ruby is known to set the highest records of sales due to its high value nevertheless. Despite being a precious stone graded alongside diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds, Manik has no standardized system for grading. This makes it difficult for a buyer to compare the prices with the global standards. So, you can consider the factors given here to make the right decision.
Look at the Color
When determining the price of any precious gemstone, color is the most important factor that truly makes a difference. The same applies to ruby gems as well. It is mined in various shades of red ranging in color from deep pigeon red to dark red-pink shades. The purest stones have a vibrant red color with strong intensity.
The best-priced rubies have a richly saturated color. It is distributed evenly without being too dark or too dull in its shade. The GIA standards categorizes that any sapphire or stone with red as a dominant color is not graded as pink sapphire.
Blood red is the right color of Burmese rubies that fetch the highest price per carat. As a buyer, you need to analyze the color on the parameters of hue, saturation, and intensity to make the right pricing estimation. Here’s how:
- The hue is the true color mixed with several secondary colors in the composition of a stone. Rubies contain secondary shades of pink, orange, and purple. The stone having brightest red with a tint of purple is considered the best.
- Saturation refers to the strength of color in a gemstone. Higher saturation gets high price of ruby.
- Tone of the color is its lightness or darkness under natural lights. Rubies with medium color tone are preferred the most.
Consider the Clarity
The clarity is one of the most important parameters to judge the quality and price of precious stones like rubies. Being a natural gemstone from mineral corundum family, ruby has certain inherent inclusions that may or may not be visible with bare eyes.
Visibly clean gemstone gets a better value. But, even in stones having natural inclusions, the visibility and placement of these flaws can affect their final price. Rubies are classified under type II grade that makes natural inclusions a normal phenomenon. Inclusions in the form of silk rutile, crystal inclusions, feathers, and fingerprints can occur in this stone.
But, when these inclusions are present under the table facet, they affect the transparency and luster of the stone. If fractures are surface-reaching, they can threaten the hardness and durability. Hence, you should look for these properties when buying this stone. However, there may be exceptions when it comes to rubies with microscopic needle-type silk inclusions.
Though these flaws affect the clarity, they create a stunning star effect on the surface of the stone. These star rubies fetch even higher price due to their extreme rarity.
Ask About the Origin
The quality of a gemstone is greatly affected by the origin or source mine where they are extracted. In the case of ruby, the mines in Burma or present-day Myanmar produce the finest quality of this gemstone.
The striking color saturation and uniformity give a high price tag to Burmese rubies. Over the years, geological explorations around the globe have led to discovery of ruby mines in several other countries as well.
Today, Vietnam is the closest competitor to Myanmar in production of high-quality rubies. Tanzania and Mozambique are also leading producers of this precious stone. Remember, original ruby price for stones mined in Burma may range anywhere from $150 to $1600 per carat depending on the quality of the stone.
Choose the Right Cut
When it comes to visual aesthetics and brilliance of color in rubies, the type of cut also matters a lot. Look at the facets and weight retention of the stone when analyzing the impact of its cut on the price.
The best-quality gemstones may be slightly less proportionate in terms of their cut. That’s due to the limited availability of the gemstone. So, if you want a hexagonal or a fancy tabular shape in your gem, be prepared to pay a higher price of stone.
Usually, the prices are determined per-carat bases, so gem cutters lay their focus on weight retention. Cuts that cause minimum wastage of the raw stone are considered a better option. Hence, round or oval shaped stones are most commonly used for astrological purposes. But, they should retain the depth at 60-80% of their total width.
Check the Treatments
Sometimes, a low-quality stone may need lab treatments for enhancing their color and clarity. The most common treatments for rubies are heat treatment, glass filling, and beryllium treatment. While heat treatment dissolves crystalline inclusions to enhance clarity of the stone, glass filling uses molten glass to fill the gaps or cracks on the surface of the stone. Due to these treatments, the value of stone may fall.
Though these inexpensive stones may be good for jewelry purposes, they aren’t of any value for astrological benefits. You need to invest in genuine and natural gemstones that aren’t heated or lab treated in any way to serve astrological purposes. These stones may be valued high but the benefits they bring to your life are worth the value.
So, when you are looking to buy authentic, pure, and stunning ruby gems at the best prices, don’t overlook any of these factors to make the most of your purchase. Ask the seller to give you a detailed catalog along with a free lab certificate that proves the genuineness of the stone. Buying the stone from reputed sellers like Gempundit makes a lot of sense in this regard. These sellers not only deal in authentic stones sourced from the best places but also ensure complete quality checks at various levels.