Precious
Rubies
Red · Purplish Red · Orangey Red · Pinkish Red
Varieties
How rubies are categorised
Trade categories rather than gemological ones — these are the terms a requirement is normally written in.
- Pigeon's-blood-type
- A lab-issued colour description, not a category any stone can be assigned to by eye.
- Commercial Ruby
- The volume line — calibrated and parcel goods for production.
- Star Ruby
- Cabochon-cut with asterism; supplied as singles.
Rubies in detail
Where ruby value sits
Colour dominates ruby pricing to a degree that has no equivalent in the other species. A half-step of saturation is worth more than a clarity grade. This is why ruby requirements should always lead with the colour band and a reference, and why a written description alone rarely closes the gap between buyer and supplier.
The boundary between ruby and pink sapphire is a colour judgement, not a hard gemological line, and different markets draw it in different places. If your market requires a stone to be sold as ruby, say so at the requirement stage — it changes what we look at.
Size behaves steeply. Clean, well-saturated ruby above 2 ct is a materially different market from calibrated melee, in both price and availability. A requirement for twenty matched 6 × 4 mm ovals in fine colour is a sourcing project.
Clarity and cut in practice
Ruby is an included stone. Fine material carries inclusions that would be unacceptable in a diamond of the same size, and buyers who apply diamond clarity language to ruby will not find what they are asking for. The commercial question is whether inclusions are visible face-up at normal viewing distance and whether they threaten durability at the setting stage.
Inclusions that reach the surface, or that sit under a corner or a point, are a manufacturing risk rather than an appearance issue. If stones are going into channel settings or tension settings, tell us — it narrows what we will offer.
Cut in ruby is usually native to the cutting centre and prioritises weight retention. Expect variation in outline symmetry across a parcel and specify your tolerance if the stones must sit in machine-made settings.
Calibrated ruby and parcels
Calibrated ruby is supplied in the same standard millimetre steps as sapphire and is the format most manufacturers buy. Round melee from 1.0 mm upward and small ovals from 3 × 2 mm are the workhorse sizes.
Parcels are sold either by piece or by weight, and the two are not interchangeable when you are costing a production run. A parcel priced per carat with a wide size range can contain far fewer usable stones than the weight implies. State the size range and the count you need.
Treatment
Heat treatment is standard across most of the ruby market. Separately, lead-glass-filled and composite ruby is widely traded and is a fundamentally different product — it is not durable under normal jewellery repair conditions and must never be sold as equivalent to heated ruby. We identify the treatment recorded for each stone, and we will tell you plainly when material offered to us falls into the composite category.
This describes the market for the species. It is not a statement about any individual stone — disclosure for a specific stone comes from that stone’s own record and documentation. More on laboratory reports.
Buyer questions
Buying rubies
- What is glass-filled ruby and why does it matter?
- It is heavily fractured corundum whose fractures have been filled with lead glass to improve apparent clarity. It looks like ruby and is priced far below it. The practical problem is durability: standard jeweller's heat and some pickling solutions can damage the filler. It is a legitimate product when sold as what it is, and a serious problem when it is not.
- Can you match ruby to a stone I already have?
- Often, yes, and it is a common request for repairs and for extending an existing line. Send images under a stated light source plus the millimetre dimensions. Matching to a physical reference is more reliable than matching to a description.
- Do you supply ruby melee for production?
- Yes. Give the millimetre size, shape, quantity, colour band and whether the run repeats. Calibrated melee is normally the most straightforward ruby requirement to fill.
- Should I buy ruby with a laboratory report?
- For significant single stones, yes — particularly where colour description or absence of heat forms part of the value. For calibrated melee and commercial parcels, reports are not standard practice and would cost more than the stones.