Hello, I need help: is this ruby from Tanzania seems to have been heated ? Seller told me that it is Unheated but how could i know? also it is a 17 carat so i don’t want to make a mistake. Thanks for your help.
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It’s hard to say from the pic, but I don’t think it’s heat treated. It is a bit on the bright side (a brighter red/pink) than I have seen in a few others, but 1. that may just be the camera settings, aka 2. it’s not really exceptionally bright. I’m just guessing based on the pics, of course, but it seems to me that if someone wanted to treat that, they could get more pronounced results. If it were mine, I wouldn’t fret about that, it’s a nice stone!
Obviously I can not say if it has been heated without looking at it with a microscope. I will say that 90 percent of the sapphire on the market in the last several years has been heated. Most of it heated very highly with Borax. Basically the only stones not heated in the last decade at least are the extremely nice stones with a very high value. Again I can’t tell you yes or know on the if it’s heated. I have actually been researching this a lot the last couple weeks. There are a few different heating processes. Borax or boric acid is extremely common as a flux in heat treatment. I will say that unless it is a lead glass filled gem it doesn’t hurt the value nearly as much as glass filled. From the clarity of the gem I highly doubt it is glass filled. I have been amazed by the processes and when it became basically common to heat treat. If you have access to a gem microscope you can figure it out for yourself by looking at the inclusions. I’m not a betting man but I’m betting yes it has been heated. That is just a GUESS!! LOL
No one is going to waste time, effort and money heat treating a poor quality opaque ruby.