The Rose of Mozambique, a rare, high-quality ruby sold at the Gemfields auction in Singapore to Bangkok’s pre-eminent gem specialist Sant Enterprises, has been cut and polished to reveal its true beauty.
Sant’s managing director Santpal Sinchawla has had a lifetime of experience with rubies, working in the family gemstone business since he was just 18. Led by Santpal Sinchawla, the Sant team sealed the deal, fending off many rivals in a tense sealed bid auction, Gemfields said in a statement.
“Rubies, unlike diamonds, are not about the carat – they’re valued on the intensity of the colour and how the stone will present itself once it’s cut – and it was clear the Rose had an exceptionally rich colour and fantastic clarity,” explained Santpal Sinchawla, whose family has been trading rubies since 1963 and who was present at the first ever auction of Gemfields rough rubies in 2014.
To be truly precious, a ruby’s deep red colour must blend hue, saturation, and tone perfectly. Post auction, Sant’s team of eight specialists worked on the stone to bring out these fires within. The delicate slicing, pre-forming, shaping and polishing of a ruby requires a deep understanding of the stone to ensure its true beauty and the fire within are on display.
Sant’s ruby cutters have an artisan’s skill with the steel saws, careful placing of the stone on the dop stick, critical in ensuring the coarse and fine spinning wheels slice tiny wafers in a way that enhances the ruby’s final bright facets. In the process, the rough 12.24-carat gem was cut and polished into the Rose of Mozambique, which weighs in at 7.67 carats.
The result is a pure, vibrant red stone with crystal clarity and rich colour saturation, key in determining the Rose’s value. Rubies can command the highest prices of any coloured gemstone and, the per-carat prices of fine-quality rubies have been breaking auction records recently. The Sant team are now searching for the perfect partner to place the stone in an exceptional fine jewellery piece.
Gemfields first sent gemstones to Singapore auctions in 2014 and, since then, Mozambique has taken over from Myanmar as the source of most of the rubies found in the Thailand gem markets, the global hub for ruby trading.
“Before Mozambique, very few fine-quality, larger rubies had been discovered,” explained Adrian Banks, Gemfields product and sales director. “Our secondary deposit produces very high-quality rubies, among the best in the world. These gems have travelled along a river bed over millions of years to this site and so only the best quality ones have survived the motion of water. Since 2014, Gemfields has auctioned some unusually large sizes and exceptional rubies such as Dragon Eye and Rhino rubies – and now the Rose of Mozambique.”
Caption: Santpal’s son Anurak Sinchawla (centre), director of sales, on-site as the Rose is being pre-formed.