If someone asks you what kind of red is the noblest and most charming in the world, you can say it is "pigeon blood red" among rubies without hesitation.

"Dove blood red" is a fine product among red corundum gems. Its color is not heavy or dry, rich and harmonious, soft as water and warm as fire. It is the ultimate pursuit of emperors' palaces and nobles in past dynasties, and it is an indispensable ornament for contemporary rich people. It is a symbol of status, status and wealth, which can set off the luxury of women and the style of men. It is no exaggeration to say that ruby is "the jewel of nobility, the nobleman among gems". Ruby is the birthstone and protective stone of July in the west, symbolizing passionate love.

In Myanmar, the world-famous hometown of gems, people even believe that rubies have the magic power to reverse fortune. Ancient Burmese soldiers believed that they could be invulnerable and invincible by cutting a small mouth and wearing a ruby before going out to war.

Westerners believe that people who wear rubies will be smart, healthy and live long, and their love will be happy. Therefore, ruby is a valuable gift for their 40th wedding anniversary.

Aside from the superstition and legend of ruby, we can understand the preciousness of ruby only from its current price. 1990, a 5-carat ruby is worth $50,000. A famous jeweler once asserted that high-quality rubies larger than 10 carat are so rare that no more than five rubies can be obtained at any time in the world.

Therefore, if a lady wants to attract people's attention and show her elegance and charm on solemn occasions, it is indeed a smart choice to wear a high-quality ruby with weight.

First, the identification of true and false words.

Because rubies are valuable and worth tens of millions, all kinds of fakes emerge one after another. This has caused the fact that the jewelry market is difficult to distinguish between true and false.

Natural ruby refers to a red gem-grade corundum mineral formed under natural conditions, which is composed of Al2O3, but its redness is caused by trace chromium. Internationally, the red color of ruby should not be too light, otherwise it can't be called ruby, but can only be classified as bright sapphire.

Natural ruby is often crystallized into hexagonal cylinder or hexagonal prism when it is formed. It is abraded by geological processes (such as weathering and handling) and accumulated into sand. It can also be round and pebble-shaped, with no crystal form.

In the Chinese jewelry market, the common gems that are most easily mixed with rubies are spinel, garnet, red tourmaline, red zircon, light red cesium beryl and light red topaz. Synthetic ruby, synthetic spinel and red glass are common fakes in synthetic gemstones.

It is not difficult to distinguish rubies from other rubies. As long as you remember the following characteristics or properties of rubies, you can generally distinguish them.

1, the difference between rubies and other rubies

(1) Ruby has a Mohs hardness of 9, second only to diamond. Find a colorless topaz (hardness 8, the price is less than a few yuan. It is not difficult for people interested in gems to find a piece as a test board, and then draw topaz with the ruby you want to test. If you can draw a mark on topaz, it is usually ruby, otherwise it is not (note that marking may damage the gem, and be careful not to use the test board to mark the gem to be tested).

(2) Ruby often has obvious dichroism, which is one of the reasons why ruby is bright red. The so-called dichroism is the phenomenon that a gem will see two colors (or tones) from different directions. Ruby's dichroism is red and orange-red, which is also useful for some inlaid gems. Customers only need to turn the red gem under the lamp for several times (it is best to look at it under a magnifying glass of 10 times). If they find that a gem has only one color without any change, then it may be red spinel, garnet or red glass, not ruby.

(3) Ruby (natural) often has cracks, which is often called "Ten Hong Jiu Cracks". Natural rubies (especially those with large particles) are rare without any cracks and defects. However, spinel, garnet or tourmaline are also visible to the naked eye and need to be distinguished according to other characteristics of rubies.

(4) As a precious gem, high-quality natural rubies over 3 carats are hard to see in the market. Garnet and zircon are common.

The above points are effective ways to distinguish rubies from other red natural gems. However, it is still impossible to distinguish natural rubies from synthetic rubies according to these points, because their physical and chemical properties are almost the same, such as hardness, refractive index, specific gravity and so on.

Before explaining the difference between them, we need to explain an important fact. That is, synthetic ruby, as the earliest synthetic gem in science, has a history of 100 years. 1882, a large number of fused rubies or Geneva rubies appeared in the European market. In fact, when we identified many "ancestral rubies" sent to the Gem Center of Sun Yat-sen University, we found that most of them were synthetic rubies. So don't trust the value of "zu" easily.

2. The difference between natural ruby and synthetic ruby.

(1) Observe with magnifying equipment, such as 10 times gem magnifying glass or gem microscope. Under magnification, natural rubies can often see defects, fingerprint inclusions or "angular" inclusions (such as some needle-like rutile and tiny other mineral crystals) or some flat growth lines. The interior of synthetic rubies is often very clean, and sometimes there are some spherical, water-drop bubbles or arc-shaped growth lines. The discovery of arc growth lines is often the most meaningful. As long as you can confirm that there is an arc-shaped growth line, you can be sure whether you are testing or buying a natural ruby. Synthetic rubies grown by flux method and hydrothermal method may also have flat ribbons, but they usually have window screen-like feathers or triangular, hexagonal and needle-like alloy sheets with metallic luster.

(2) In a pile of ruby raw materials, it is not easy to determine that all gems are natural just because most of them are natural. At the same time, don't jump to conclusions based on the appearance and crystal shape of gems, because in fact, many synthetic rubies have undergone various treatments, which can be very similar to natural rubies in appearance and skin, and mixed with natural low-quality rubies for sale.

(3) This is a useless and most useful suggestion, that is, when you buy expensive rubies, you'd better not just draw a conclusion based on experience or get some knowledge from books, but go to a gem laboratory or center with sufficient equipment and experience for gem identification. Because of the advanced science, many synthetic products (such as molten salt method and hydrothermal method) have reached several confusing procedures, so there is no latest scientific experimental results and information.

3. The difference between natural ruby and red glass

It is easy to distinguish them, just remember that the Mohs hardness of ruby is 9, and red glass is generally less than 7, and there is no dichroism; The fact that natural rubies have "ten Hong Jiu cracks" is bicolor, and those with good color and large particles are rare, so they can be recognized generally.

Knowing the above points, does the customer have enough knowledge to identify it? The answer is yes andno. For some rubies with high quality and large particle size, we should be very careful, especially pay attention to whether there are sandwiched rubies, that is, whether rubies are bonded by two or three layers of gems; Whether the ruby is dyed or coated, that is, whether the red color of the ruby is natural.

For the sandwich ruby, if it is not inlaid with loose particles, it can be observed in water or oil to try to find out whether there is a bubble layer "fuzzy zone" in a certain vertical direction of the gem. If there is, it may be sticky. For inlaid gems, it is necessary to carefully observe and detect whether there are layered "fuzzy objects" on the side of the gem with a magnifying glass.

Dyeing mainly occurs in some varieties with more cracks. Customers should carefully observe whether the red color is distributed along the cracks. If it is, it may be dyed ruby.

For rubies that may be coated, customers can scrape the surface with a small steel knife. Some people will worry about damaging gems. In fact, the hardness of steel knives (5.5) is far less than that of rubies (9), so don't worry. If the red powder is scraped off, it means that it is ruby red.

4. Identify key

(1) It is extremely rare that the natural ruby "Ten Hong Jiu Crack" has no natural crystal inclusions;

(2) Ruby has strong dichroism;

(3) Synthetic rubies are mostly arc growth lines, bubbles or window screen-like feathers and angular alloy sheets;

(4) Beware of "dyeing" and sandwich rubies.

Second, the evaluation of "Red Ninety Cracks"

It is very important to evaluate the value of ruby. First of all, as one of the most precious gems, its price is not only affected by some fixed evaluation factors (such as color), but also by the ever-changing market demand. There is still no internationally accepted evaluation standard for jewelry industry, which is obviously different from diamonds.

Color In the evaluation of ruby or colored gems, color is often the first and the most emotional evaluation factor. However, it is not easy to describe the change of color quantitatively, so the standards in this respect are often vague, and sometimes even different people have different opinions. It should be said that the color classification scheme proposed by GIA is preferable.

They invented a color masterbatch, which adjusted the color system of gemstones under a fixed light source, added chromaticity and numbered them, so that different color systems had different numbers. GIA classifies gems into seven grades according to the depth of color, from small to large, and from light to dark. Generally speaking, the color and price of gems are often the best; However, the price of 6-7 grade gems will be reduced due to their dark colors. Generally, the color difference is one level, other conditions are the same, and the price of gemstones can differ by dozens to several times.

Of course, this classification is not very popular at present, one of the reasons is that in the past, the color of the place of origin was often used as the standard of color classification, and the popularity of color discriminator was still very limited, so the division in the market was still very artificial. People with different light sources and different sensitivities to color changes have different judgments on color levels.

As far as rubies are concerned, it used to be generally considered that Burmese rubies are the best rubies, and "Dove Blood Red" is the best and the highest price among Burmese rubies. In Myanmar, the first-class ruby is called Anyum, the second-class ruby is called Aniki, and the third-class ruby is called Asah. But in fact, most of the Burmese rubies we usually see are not as red as pigeon blood red, and they are often only red, rose red and light red. Therefore, Burmese ruby actually refers to a kind of pure red ruby without earthy tones.