RUBY TREATMENTS
Heat treatment (normal)
Most rubies you’ll see on the market have been heat-treated to improve color or clarity. This is standard practice in the gem world and has been for decades. A heated ruby is still a natural ruby.
That said, truly unheated rubies are much rarer, which is why they usually come with a higher price tag.
Diffusion treatment
Diffusion treatment alters a ruby’s color by forcing additional elements (like beryllium) into the surface of the stone under very high heat. Unlike traditional heat treatment, which enhances what’s already present throughout the crystal, diffusion only affects the color of the outer layer.
If a diffused ruby is chipped, scratched, or repolished, that surface color can be reduced or removed, revealing a lighter or less aesthetic body color underneath. Because of this, diffused rubies are typically worth much less than untreated or heat-treated stones.
It also requires full disclosure. Without it, a diffused ruby can look far more valuable than it actually is. We don’t work with diffused rubies at Gem Breakfast.
Lead-glass filling
Some heavily fractured rubies are filled with high-lead glass to improve clarity. The glass seeps into surface-reaching cracks and makes the stone look cleaner and more transparent than it naturally is.
The issue? The glass is not ruby. It has very different physical properties. That means the stone can be more sensitive to heat, chemicals, and even standard jewelry repair. Resizing, retipping prongs, or future polishing can damage the fill. Over time, the glass can also become cloudy or degrade.
Because so much of what you’re seeing is filler rather than ruby, these stones are valued far lower than natural or simply heat-treated rubies.
We don’t work with lead-glass filled rubies at Gem Breakfast.
