Siam, excuse us, Thai ruby still has plenty of detractors in the world gem community. To many old guard dealers, it is a poor substitute for the Burmese variety, despite the fact that Burma stopped official gem mining in 1962, leaving the world almost totally dependent on neighboring Thailand and stretches of mine tract just across its Cambodian border. The adjustment to Southeast Asia’s other and once-despised variety of ruby has been slow and reluctant.
Granted, Thai stones come in larger sizes and are generally cleaner and brighter. Nevertheless, because connoisseurs usually found them so unfavorably purplish, so unbearably reminiscent of garnet, posh jewelers avoided them until necessity finally required it. Among the longest holdouts: Tiffany and Van Cleef & Arpels.
Thai dealers were not insensitive to the establishment’s lack of esteem for their rubies. But to change its harsh, unaccommodating attitude meant finding the means to change the color of their stones. Some time in the mid to late 1970s, the Thais discovered a method, using high-heat kilns, and later, controlled-atmosphere furnaces, that eliminated purple and left their rubies a far more desirable red.
In this way, modern color alchemy broke down longstanding resistance to Thai ruby. Further, as heating was used more and more indiscriminately on ruby, it gradually bred indifference to the fact of treatment. Where once Thai dealers seemed to take care to conceal their art, now they are quite open about it—so much so that they are even subjecting Burma ruby to rather brutal treatment too. This development has many dealers and gemologists concerned. And for good reason.
Oven Politics
Ruby is not the first gem to depend on heat treatment for market acceptability. Aquamarine, citrine and, more recently, tanzanite, to name a few, are largely the products of color enhancement. But in the case of these gems, heating created a standard of beauty that otherwise would have been unattainable. Not so with ruby.
“Even with heating, you did not in 999 out of 1,000 cases produce stones that stood up to comparison with the best of Burma,” says famed New York lapidary Reggie Miller, Reginald C. Miller Inc. “Some were exceptional, no doubt, but still exceptions to the rule.”
Thai rubies, although boasting vastly better looks, faced no-win comparisons with Burma. The art of Thailand’s heat treaters may have been long, but the memories of connoisseurs were longer. However, when Thai dealers began extreme heating of Burma, in addition to Thai stones, treatment obliterated most if not all of the internal signs that gemologists use as conclusive evidence of Burma origin.
Gem origin specialist Cap Beesley of American Gemological Laboratories in New York calls this process “super frying” and says he is seeing signs of it in an alarming number of stones. “Rubies your instinct tells you came from Burma are almost completely devoid of the characteristics we once took as proof of our hunches,” Beesley continues. “As a result, we can’t issue confirming documents on them.”
Without these confirming documents, Burma stones risk a limbo where they must be sold on the basis of physical appearance alone—color, clarity, cutting and the like—and sacrifice origin-based premiums that take into account their far greater rarity and historical aesthetic supremacy.
Thankfully, there are still many fine unmolested Burma rubies coming into the market from estates and dealer’s old stocks whose origin can be authenticated. In fact, it is nearly impossible to sell Burma stones as such today in sizes of 3 carats or more without accompanying origin documents issued by recognized labs such as Gubelin’s in Zurich or American Gemological Laboratories in New York. Stones whose papers are in order can command a price at least 100% greater than a look-alike without a positive identification as Burmese ($100,000 per carat unpedigreed versus $20,000 per carat pedigreed for a fine 5-carat ruby). If unpedigreed, a Burma look-alike is presumed to be a heat-treated Thai stone until or unless proven otherwise.
Under 3 carats, however, lab pedigrees don’t mean as much. Thai stones have made such inroads that confirmed 3-carat Burma-origin rubies are lucky to command a 50% premium. 1- to 2-carat sizes often only 25% to 30% more. This shrinking Burma-Thai price differential has purists worried.
“At this rate, there will soon be price parity,” frets Miller. For the Thais, as well as many gem dealers worldwide, parity would be welcome. They resent the fact that mediocre Burma stones can fetch as much or more than better-looking Thai stones purely on the basis of birthplace. They want stones to compete on looks alone.
Calling the Shots
As heating has become an indispensable step in the market preparation of ruby, the Thais have come to flex a control of the ruby market which resembles that of De Beers in the diamond world. Like De Beers, the Thais are involved in every aspect of ruby marketing—from mining through cutting and heating. But whereas De Beers can be called a cartel, the Thai dealer clique that controls the ruby market should be called an oligarchy. Its power is looser and less formal than De Beers’—but often just as awesome. Just ask the U.S. dealers who have had to contend with it.
Since the dollar started its descent in September 1985, Thai dealers have raised prices for all sizes and grades of ruby on average 40% to 50% per year to offset—some say overcompensate for—the greenback’s steady loss in value against the yen, Swiss franc and Deutsche mark. And as long as the Japanese, Chinese and Europeans who are the current big buyers of ruby make no protest, the Thais will show no mercy at the bargaining table. So, U.S. dealers are forced to pass on nearly all the ruby offered them. The Thais are inflexible, willing only to haggle at most a few percentage points over price. As a result, American dealers on buying goods have been returning home empty-handed.
Ironically, some Americans are taking advantage of runaway prices in Bangkok by selling ruby stocks in Thailand for 20% to 30% more than they would receive in New York. It’s either that or wait until domestic buyers are willing to pay what everyone else is paying. So far, U.S. jewelry manufacturers and retailers have been balking at higher ruby prices and, instead, concentrating on emerald and sapphire. Eventually, suppliers are hoping, customers will recommence ruby buying with different terms. “It’s just a matter of convincing the industry that high ruby prices in Bangkok are here to stay,” says a dealer.
Please note: this profile was originally published in 1988 in Modern Jeweler’s ‘Gem Profiles: The First 60’, written by David Federman with photographs by Tino Hammid.
The 2.98-carat Thai ruby shown in the header image is courtesy of Reginald C. Miller Inc., New York.
