Ruby (rare style of crystal) on Calcite

Item Description

Rubies from Mogok are the most highly valued in the world, both in gems or in minerals. The mining here is insane, with 500,000 workers in the Mogok Valley mining every day and splitting the few things found. It is, in one word, humbling (the 2017 Dallas Mineral Collecting Symposium - dallassymposium.org - featured a talk and video, on the matter). Specimens are so few, and now I understand why. It is incredibly rare to find an aesthetic ruby that has any gemminess at all because of the extreme competition to get quick cash from cutting them, and then to keep it from being cut is as great a challenge. This aesthetic miniature specimen showcases a stunning pseudo-octahedron pinkish ruby which measured 0.6-0.7 cm on the cleaved calcite crystal. EX: Jingnan (Tom) Zhang collection.