Rubies and Sapphires Are Birthstones

Corundum sounds so… mundane. It actually sounds like a mental disorder. In reality it’s a family of minerals that gives us the exquisite rubies and sapphires. The dazzling gems a right up their with diamonds in the jewelry world, and deservedly so.

The September birthstone is the sapphire and the ruby is the July birthstone. Lucky you if you were born in one of those months!

Those deep red rubies and blue sapphires are among the richest-colored of all gemstones and have a story of romance and a history as colorful as they are. The only corundum gems that are called rubies are the red one, everything else is a sapphire.

When grading fine colored gems the density and hue of the color are part of the evaluation, and it’s the richest, deepest colors that are the most prized. Of course, like diamonds, carats and clarity also count. In rubies, the most prized variant of color is called pigeon’s blood.

Large gem quality rubies can be more valuable than comparably sized diamonds and are certainly rarer. Perfect rubies are as rare as they are beautiful. There is a relative abundance of smaller, (1-3 carat,) blue sapphires compared to even small gem quality rubies. That rarity makes even these smaller stones relatively high in value.

The highest prices are generally found with the Burmese rubies. The vast majority of rubies are “native cut” in the country of origin. High value ruby rough is tightly controlled and rarely makes its way to custom cutters. Occasionally, such native stones are recut to custom proportions, albeit at a loss of weight and diameter. Custom cut and recut stones are usually more per carat.

Sapphires exist in all the shades of blue from the deep blue of evening skies to the bright and deep blue of a clear and beautiful summer sky. Sapphires also come in many other colors, not only in the transparent grayish misty blue of far horizons, but also displaying the bright fireworks of sunset colors – yellow, pink, orange and purple. So sapphires are really and truly heavenly stones, even though they are found deep within the Earth.