Ruby red is a distinct colour by itself; christened after the fabulous stone we often associate ruby with its reddish hue and consider the stone and the colour too sacrosanct. But in reality, ruby comes in a range of colours from red to purple. Gem & Jewellery connoisseurs elevate ruby as king amongst the world of gems & crystals merely for its beautiful colour. Indeed colour remains the primary criteria for selecting your ruby.
As a crystalline form of aluminium oxide or corundum, ruby need be colourless. What gives ruby the red tinge is the presence of minute quantum of chromium. When concentration of this element is more then we have pink colour stone instead of the lovable crimson. Harder than steel and ranking 9 in the Mohs scale ruby is just next to diamond in terms of sheer strength. Ruby has two mutually exclusive features; either it is transparent or translucent. Most rubies found in the world have transparency in varying degrees. Indian ruby, on the other hand is opaque. Ruby has fluorescence, a brilliant form of luminousness. Coupled with transparency and fluorescence ruby can transmit waves in a spectacular manner. On short waves it emits ultra-violet rays and in log waves it spreads out infra-red rays. Admittedly, the colour of the stone could serve to limit its capacity to remit such waves.
In considering colour of ruby, we have to take into cognition three independent yet inter-related aspects. These are hue, tone and intensity of the colour. Hue is generally the modification of basic colour; thereby we get a dominant colour and secondary colour or colours. Tone tells us about lightness or darkness of a particular colour. Finally intensity or saturation as used in the gem trade conveys the strength of the stone in a range from vivid to weak. Let me give you few examples of rubies across the world to illustrate the varying colours that are available for your selection.
Burma: The legendary “Pigeon-Blood” red stone is mined from Mogok in the North of Burma. Red, Medium and vivid Mogok Ruby is full of crimson light with transparency and fluorescence in equal measure. It is a very rare stone now. Mong Hsu ruby is mined from Shan state in North-East of Burma and is noted for its bi-colour hue in original form. A purple core and a red periphery makes this ruby somewhat duller. Heat treatment has transformed this stone to purplish-red. At present about 90% of Burmese rubies come from Mong Hsu.
Ceylon: Resembling a ripe raspberry Ceylon ruby is red, light, vivid and much sought after. More appealing one is the Star ruby of Ceylon with purplish red hue light with medium intensity. To offset absence of high vividness the gem is blessed with an element known as rutile that affords the stone with a silky light giving rise to what we call as an asterism. Wondrously placed the asterism shines horizontally across the table like a twinkling star.
Thailand: Ruby from Thailand has a fantastic hue of dark red petering towards light brown. This captivating colour is dubbed as “Siamese Colour”. However, there are two setbacks. One is that the high content of iron saps its fluorescence. Second, unlike in the case of Ceylon Star ruby there is no rutile element to shower star type glow.
Vietnam: Pink and slightly pink ruby abounds in Vietnam; treated gems could turn out to be pinkish red, dark stones with fair strength.
Tanzania: Mainly red stone with dark to light tone, ruby from Tanzania is strong in intensity but often lacks high transparency or fluorescence.
Muthu Ashraff
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