Rubies from Tajikistan

[mogok]

Hello,
One small word to invite you to escape your mind to some little beauties coming from the Pamir mountains in Tajikistan: Rubies.
Tajikistan is a small country in the north of Afghanistan in the western area of the Himalaya mountains. Located not that far from the famous Samarkand city which was a famous trading center belonging to the "silk road" this area and its gems have already a long history. Nevertheless if they were known, they were not common in the market until around one month ago.
As some of these stones were presented for sale as "burmese" and are presenting internal characteristics very different from the stones from Mogok, mong Hsu or Namya, we have decided to share with you the information we have collected.
This work was the result of the collaboration we had with several other gemologists and traders. We hope that you will find this study useful or at least interesting:

Here is the link:
Rubies from Tajikistan study

All the best,

 

[strmrdr]

way kewl
Thank you!

 

[Amandas_Jewels]

Gorgeous gems!

 

[colorchange]

Thanks for sharing the information !
(usefull and interresting !)

 

[smitcompton]

Dear Ruby teacher,
I have just purchased several rubies from an ebay dealer in thailand, I promised myself i would try to get a 2 carat ruby because I love them. I have a small one 1.12 ctw that is set in a ring which appraised for much more than I thought. But now I don''t know how good or bad the madagasgar rubies are that I purchased from thailand.. I looked at your pictures and know these rubies are not clean llike your examples. But, some have white crystal flecks that you can see without a loupe. Another has what looks like a crack (like in your picture). They are transparant rosy red. Some are better than others. They are large stones, 3,4,5, carat. Do I have junk? Wink, another G.G says you should think they are beautiful. My frinds and I do, but we know they have inclusions we can see. I am really ignorant. I did not pay much. Do people put imperfect rubies in rings?
Please try to answer. Thank You Annette Compton

 

[mogok]

Hi if only "perfect rubies" were used for jewelry, you would never see a ruby ring...
A good ruby is a ruby you like for the price you have pay for it, now if you want everybody to like it may be you will have to pay a little more, if you want people to pay a trip to come to see it, then you will have to pay much more...
Nobody needs to be an expert, a gemologist or a "Ruby teacher" to appreciate a stone... LOL

Now if your stones are large and were not expensive, does they look like those?
lead glass filled rubies

Now "fine rubies" are extremely expensive, so if you dont have paid a crazy price for your stones you have probably something far to be the best ruby of the world. But if you like it then it is fine and if I dont like it, it does not matter as you did not buy this stone to please me...

All the best,

 

[colorchange]

Hi,

To be straight, if you have bought rubies on ebay without a certificate, the odds are (1000 to 1) that it be glass filled and that you paid it about it's value...

Such material is often very nice, but worth far far less than non treated material.

You should ask a very good gemmologist, I have tried for fun to show such material (which I don't sell) to many "old" gemmologists that didn't see the problem with the stones.

Some are very severly glass filled and look like those shown by Vincent, some (that are yet worth more) have filling visible only with a loupe.

Regards

 

[riogems]

Hi Vincent,

Have you been to Tajikistan?

It is amazing to think people are bidding over $1,000 for these things they didn''t see without any guarantees. But, they also say... a new sucker is born every minute.

Also, I was curious these reports you mention -- do they include origin identification too?

 

[colorchange]

Date: 4/20/2006 11:51:03 PM
Author: Vincent Pardieu
Dear Annette C.
My $0.02 advise, is that you should ask this stone to be send to a reputable gemological laboratory in order to have a ''third person opinion''. Some good labs in Bangkok are offering reliable identification services for less than $20...
Lead glass filled rubies are not a problem to identify by such labs, and these labs will tell you exactly what you are intending to buy. May be the words they will use to describe what is present will not be great selling arguments, but at least you will know.
I all the time feel a little amazed when I see people paying more than $1000 to buy a stone with some fear that it might not be what they think it is when just near by some labs propose identification services for $20...

All the best,

Indeed the labs you should trust in Thailand are AIGS and GIT, they are quite cheap (and have website with prices in order that you get not cheated on the cost by seller). GRS is usually well accepted but much more expensive. I have seen mistakes (and even serious one) from almost (don''t want to be sued

) every other.

 

[Nasim Ahmad]

Dear Vincent,

Thanks for sharing your post (and AIGS article) with us on Tajik rubies. Both were interesting and educational.

I am an American working in top quality rough/cut stones from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here in Karachi, as well as other gem markets in Pakistan (especially Peshawer) we have seen many Tajikistan parcels over the past year or so, as well as large single stones. Tajikistan is already well-known for producing very fine spinel. My impressions of the Tajik ruby material is that the majority of material goes more towards "electric pink" than a strong pure red. Of course, any mine in the world will always produce a variation of color tone of the same gem type, and I have also seen the ocassional Tajik stone approching very fine intense red rivaling fine Burmese and Afghan. Also (my personal opinion), the "life" of many Tajik rubies I have seen, though natural in origin (a plus of course), was "sleepy" or "flat". Not much life in the material, and most have a luster even similar to quartz. For that reason, I wasn''t really an admirer of the material. The best piece I ever saw was a 2.02-ct cut piece of pure intense pigeon''s blood red. But again, though clean, very little life (even though well cut). I am nowhere the gemological knowledge of you or Mr. Hughes, so can''t really explain the lackluster luster.

On the contrary, I love Jagdalek (Afghan) material, and the best of these are pretty much on par with Burma''s best. The top dealers who know will tell you that top Afghan rubies share the same merit as top Burmese. In fact, it''s a well-known that for many years many of the top Afghan rubies were being sold by Thai and Burmese dealers in Bangkok as fine "Burmese". It''s sad really that the gem world is relatively unaware of the merits of Afghan ruby (same with Afghan emerald, which I think in its best quality can give any fine Colombian a run for its money...). Indeed (and once again, please know I am not an expert in these kinds of things), if we look at the world''s major corundum belt, it starts off is east Afghanistan (Jagdalek), then northern Pakistan (Hunza and Azad Kashmir), India (Kashmir), then Nepal and Tibet, then moves south to Burma, Thailand and Vietnam. So I guess some of the mines in this thin swathe could overlap each other in identification matters. Of course, the sad part of Jagdalek material is that only a tiny fraction of rough mined is facetable.

Couple of personal comments on the AIGS article: I agree that Peshawer, which was one of the best markets for natural goods, is slowly being hit with glass-filled and berylium diffused stuff. I personally know a couple of dealers who are doing this (from Karachi), and though these guys disclosed to me that their goods were glass-filled or diffused (and that they were selling onwards to dealers in Peshawer), I can''t say for certain what the Peshawer people would say onwards. From what I understand, these guys, aside from selling top Afghan rubies in Bangkok, will sometimes trade small parcels of fine Afghan material there with big parcels of glass-filled/diffused Burmese/African/Madagascar material. Therefore, unless you are sure with what/who you are are dealing with, my feelings are that this is not good for the Peshawer market. If one really looks at the world gem situation, Afghanistan really is the last frontier for fine quality untreated material. The best kunzite, the best tourmalines, (arguably) some of the finest untreated ruby and emerald. So much talk about Madagascar and Africa (and rightly so), but so little about Afghanistan and Pakistan.

About Dubai, absolutely Dubai has become a very important market for fine quality. Though being an American (and would love to supply top quality to America), I myself supply to several good people in Dubai. The Dubai dealers (and even retail customers) are very knowledgable about fine quality in gemstones and demand the best and untreated gemstones. It''s true that a lot of Afghan stuff is being sold to NATO troops in Afghanistan, but I think much of that is glass-filled/diffused.

Best regards,
Nasim

Nas-GEM

P.s. Just remembered that I have some pics of a big Jagdalek rough lot that a guy brought over my place a month ago. It was over 5000 carats of select material (I call these kinds of lots "select mine run"). His asking price was astronomical, I couldn''t believe what he was asking and so just let it go really. I did take some pics with my aging digicam and sending a few. Could have been Tajik material, but I am pretty sure it was Jagdalek.

P.p.s. Also sending a pic of a 3.55-carat fine untreated ruby I purchased recently after a long haggle for a couple of months. I love the stone, and the pic doesn''t really do justice. It''s not exactly top gem, but quite nice.

 

[Nasim Ahmad]

Jag2

 

[Nasim Ahmad]

Jag3

 

[Nasim Ahmad]

Jag4

 

[Nasim Ahmad]

This is the 3.55-carat I purchased recently. No heat, nice stone.

Nasim

 

[mogok]

Dear Nasim,
Thanks for these information, it was very interesting for me to read what you had to say. I hope that one of these days we will be able to meet and have together a closer look the gems from the west himalaya range which are beautiful...
This stones from Tajikistan are very interesting and refreshing to us at AIGS lab as I have to say that I really love to work with beautiful gems from different areas more than with beautiful gems from different burners... Nothing wrong about heated stones, they all have their place in the market, but simply I prefer to dream about Pamir mountains and its rubies than about ovens, fluxes, and beryllium.
I just wish that more nice stones from your area will come to Bangkok, so we will be able to see and speak more about natural beauty!
All the best,

 

[Richard Sherwood]

Thanks for the info Vincent, and Nasim.

Vincent (or Nasim), what price levels do you find the Tajikistan rubies commanding in comparison to Thai versus Burma stones?

Nasim, is that 3.55 ruby the Burma stone you were working so hard on buying?

 

[Walido]

some other rubies from Tajikistan

 

[Walido]

2

 

[mogok]

Dear pricescope friends,
As I''m just back from a long fieldtrip to Tajkistan and its neighboring countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Chinese Xin Jiang, I''ve updated the report AIGS Lab did on these Tajik rubies with some photos I took from the mines last July.
The field trip to Tajikistan was great together with my friends Richard Hughes, Dana Schorr and Guillaume Soubiraa we visited also the historic spinel mines in Kul I Lal. These are the mines sometimes also called Badakshan which are known to be the birth place of the "balas ruby".
You can visit the updated Tajik ruby study at the following link:
tajik rubies

Now you can also go to visit the complete report.
It is currently available on Gubelin, AIGS Lab and Fieldgemology website but Richard Hughes is also preparing its own version for the Tajikistan part which is great!
Here are the links to the reports:

Gubelin Gem Lab
AIGS Lab
The same version is also available on fieldgemology...

Hoping that it will interest you!

For the taste here is one photo of the ruby mine located at more than 4000 meters altitude in a wonderful arid landscape!

All the best,

 

[flopkins]

Oh Vincent, I love reading your updates!!! I just skimmed thru the AIGS update, it is quite interesting - I love all the pics of the inclusions, some are so beautiful at high mag!

Thank you for sharing your expertise!

 

[mogok]

No Problem,
I''m happy to share these fieldtrip reports with you.
For info yesterday at the bangkok show I saw a very attractive 3 carat Tajik ruby. The owner was very sad not to have been able to get a "burmese" origin for his stones from some major labs. He tried as he said...
Nevertheless the stone is beautiful and I hope that in a close future Tajikistan will get more famous for its rubies so people will not need to try to sell them as Burmese to make some profit.
All the best,