Taking Care Of Your Ruby Ring

A ruby ring is one of the most beautiful pieces of jewelry, with rubies being regarded in the past as “the king of the gemstones”. In fact ruby rings, necklaces and crowns have always been popular within royalty the world over. The ruby is the birthstone for the month of July and a ruby ring makes a perfect gift for your significant other if they were born in this month. In the past, ruby rings were also very common as engagement rings (and even wedding rings), although the flavor of the last century or so has been the diamond engagement ring.

The ruby ring itself appears in many forms, from the precious large solitaire, to the square cut ruby eternity band which features small rubies all around the outer edge of the ring. Often the ruby or rubies will be accompanied by diamonds which adds to the beauty of this accessory.

It is only relatively recently that you can buy a ruby ring and be assured that the gemstone is, in fact, a ruby. For centuries – spanning back to Roman times – people have been passing off fakes as the genuine article. It was common to discover later that a royal crown, for example, was encrusted with beautiful, but nevertheless fake, rubies – usually garnets or spinels, which are both also red in color, but not valuable like ruby.

If you have a ruby ring and want to know how to care for it, and clean and polish it, your first port of call should be a jeweler, as you will need to know for certain that the gemstone is a real ruby. If the surface is covered in small scratches, there is a risk that it’s a fake. But before you think about throwing it away, remember that although ruby is a very hard mineral, it can get scratched by other rubies, and certainly by diamonds, which are pretty much the only things that can causes scratches on the surface. A good tip with any rings is to keep the case and store the rings separately, rather than throwing them all into a jewelry box when you’re not wearing them. This will prevent them rubbing up against each other and causing damage.

A clouded ruby, although possibly not as sparkly or attractive as a clear, transparent one, will almost always be genuine and, more importantly, natural – this makes it more valuable. There are many artificially produced rubies out there, and also a high number of chemically treated ones, which all aspire to attain a higher price. The one thing to be certain about is that if you ever encounter the “perfect” ruby, completely flawless in its structure, then you’ve got a fake!

Once you have established that your ruby ring is the genuine article, by getting it examined by an expert, then if there are lots of scratches on the surface, first, make sure you keep it separate from other diamond, sapphire or ruby jewelry. Second – the bad news – you will not be able to polish away the damage by yourself. It will be best to go to an expect – sometimes called a lapidary – to get the gemstone restored properly. This will involved removing a very thin layer of the surface to even it out again. It might be costly to get this done, and as always, the best advice is to prevent damage rather than find a cure after the damage is done!