Los Angeles herald., 1907-01-15
Imitation Ruby Hard to Detect

TlCIlueSS OL COlOT VI lue Icdl
Imitation Ruby Hard to Detect
The scientific or manufactured ruby
Is in many cases almost impossible of
detection except by the very expert, SO
one of Uncle Sans expert examiners
of precious stones explains. The scien-
tifc ruby is exactly the same in COM
position as the stone dug from the
earth, being sometimes chips Of the
real stone fused under intense heat, or
being made of alumina powdered and
fused at great heat with coloring mat
ter, applied and passed through ma
chine from which it emerges In glob
ules. The stone has every quality of
the genuine stone, and is, in fact, ex-
actly the same, except that man in
stead of nature has done the work,
turned out a poorer job. The difficulty
in manufacturing these stones Is in
finding uniform red that will give
something of the richness of the min
eral stone. The expert whose days and
years are spent in examining stones
that come in from foreign countries,
and differentiating the real from the
spurious, can tell at the first glance
through his glass when the stone is
an imitation or manufactured article,
but he finds many an experienced jew
eler who is deceived by the chemists S
art.
The expert tells the manufactured
article in several different ways when
the color has been so perfecly caught
as not to show 1t an imitation at once.
Oftentimes there are bubbles in the
laboratory stone that are not to be
seen in the genuin1 and there are al
ways waves not discerniple to the
average examiner but easily discern
ible to the expert, the kind of waves
one sees in molasses that has been
cooked. 1t was these waves that
showed up the imitation cmeralds and
sapphires to the government experts.
The process of reconstructing ruby
was discovered by Frenchman several
years ago, and for a long time he
manufactured his rubies in secret, keep
ing his process hidden from the knoWl-
edge Of the world, but the secret was
too valuable not to spread and possibly
through some faithless workers it
leaked out. Now there are a number
of manufacturers in France who are
making the stones IN their laboratories
and shipping quantitie7 of them to this
country. When the French chemist
held his secret close the imitation gems
were worth from 40 to 100 francs a
karat. Now so numerous have the
manufactured stones become, that 1t is
only an occasional one lat is valued
at more than cranes a karat. Their
abundance has appreciated the genuine
stone, which, when perfect, is worth
much more thar the diamond. And
now comes the manufactured emerald
and sapphire, and the dealers are hold
ing up their hands in horror at the
thought that such stones may be
classed by the government as precious
stones and placed in the market as
such. The unscrupulous dealer will sell
them to the unsuspecting publ as the
real stones and .Aere will be grand
ladies proudly flashing gems on their
necks and their arms which were
turned out of the skilled foreign chem
istL' laboratory fs~m cheap crystal and
coloring matter.
The government expert for this port
declares that there has been an enor-
nous increase in the amount Of imi-
tation stones that have been imported
to this country In the past year or
two, as we'll as an enormous increase
in the importation of genuine stones.
These imitation gems come principal
ly from Austria and France, whose
workmen seem to be growing more and
more skilled in approaching the real
with their manufactured article. They
are turning out numbers of doublets.