There Are No More Pink Rubies on the Planet Earth.

There Are No More Pink Rubies on the Planet Earth.

by Gary Hocking

I am sorry to have to tell you that around the end of the century before last there has not been much more in the way of recorded finds of pink rubies. Since that period none have ever been mined. So if you have a piece of beautiful pink ruby jewellery stashed in your family belongings from great grandfather’s travels to Ceylon then it may be worth a great fortune?

Well, yes, it may be worth a fortune and then again it may be worth just a reasonable amount. However, one thing is certain, or almost certain, is that it is no longer a pink ruby. Well, it is certain that it is no longer a pink ruby. It may not even be a ruby any longer or it could be a red ruby now rather than a pink one. What?

If it is no longer a ruby then what the hell is it? Well, it could now be a sapphire! Huh? Please explain!

Rubies and sapphires are the same thing or type of mineral called corundum. However at some point in history it evolved that only red corundum would be called ruby and all other colours, including pink would be called sapphires. So that’s how it came to be that what was once an excellent pink ruby became an excellent pink sapphire.

So at what point does a pink sapphire become a red ruby? Now you are asking the wrong guy here because thanks to mum I am colour blind. So where does pink, dark pink, purple, light purple, dark purple, light red, red and dark red actually start and finish? I have no idea! But then again even people who actually see these colours have great trouble in deciding where one starts and one stops. So that problem is the problem of the pink sapphire /red ruby conundrum. Sorry, a play on corundum here, I just could not let it pass!

Can you have a borderline sapphire and ruby? No, as someone has to make a decision. The person selling it to you would lose all credibility in your eyes if he or she could not decide if it was a ruby or a sapphire that was being sold. How silly is that! But it makes sense in that context does it not? Of course, if two or two hundred gemologists could not decide then that is another matter.

Is a sapphire worth more than a ruby? Sometimes and sometimes not. But we haven’t got space to go into that conundrum.