What are Burma Rubies and Ceylon Rubies
Burma Rubies and Ceylon Rubies are considered to be the best in the world. Of course Ceylon is now called Sri Lanka these days but it still produces some very nice rubies.
Burmese rubies tend to be the darkest deep red and of the best quality. The price of a ruby is usually determined by its color. The most valuable then are the Burmese Rubies which are the deepest red, called gruesomely pigeons blood-red presumably because the color matches pigeons blood. The less deep the color the less value a ruby will have.
The current area producing rubies around Burma is In central Myanmar. In addition the area of Mong Hsu also started to produce rubies during the late 1990s and has rapidly became the world’s main ruby mining area.
The latest ruby deposit to be found in Myanmar is situated in Namya (Namyazeik) located in the northern Kachin state.
The other factor that determines price is the clarity. A ruby with less inclusions will command a better price than one with some inclusions which will price better than one that has many.
Of course carat and size also play a part in determining the price of a ruby.
If you want a Burmese ruby you will expect to have to pay top price for it so you need to be assured that it is, indeed, a Burmese ruby. It should come with a certificate from a gemological laboratory that describes fully its color, clarity, size as well as its weight in carats. It should be insured for replacement value rather than the price you paid for it as it is quite possible that the value of a similar ruby may be higher as well as difficult to obtain.
Sri Lanka or Ceylon rubies are similar although quite rare and tend to be pinker in color and probably not quite as valuable so you need to take care that when you buy a Burmese ruby re not getting a Sri Lanka ruby instead.
An area to be watchful is treatment of rubies. Many treatments are considered quite acceptable including color alteration, improving transparency by dissolving rutile inclusions, healing of fractures (cracks) or even completely filling them.
Eat is the most common treatment and almost all rubies at the lower end of the market are heat treated on the rough stones to improve color and remove purple tinge, blue patches and silk. heat treatments are usually around temperatures of 1800 °C (3300 °F) but some rubies undergo a process of low tube heat, in which the stone is heated over charcoal of a temperature of about 1300 °C (2400 °F) for 20 to 30 minutes. The silk is only partially broken as the color is improved.
However, a less acceptable treatment, which has gained popularity recently is the use of lead glass filling. Filling the fractures inside the ruby with lead glass dramatically improves the transparency of the stone, making previously unsuitable rubies fit for applications in jewelry. One needs to be watchful therefore that the ruby you are considering buying is not a lower grade ruby enhanced to ‘look’ like a Burmese ruby.
Hopefully the above will give you a better idea of what Burmese rubies and Ceylon rubies are.