The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-04
Fraklin Clarkin in Everybody's Mag'

zine.
 H PURCHASERS of rubies do not
 advertise the fact until to use ! a bull, they lose some. The ownership of the best in America is known only to the sellers and it is con
 trary to custom for jewellers to yield up
 buyers names.
 Sales are kept concealed because of three fears:
 Fear of robbery; fear to challenge comparison of prices; fear that the pur- chase may have been intended. as the trade phrase is, "to go around the cor ner' Gin romantic terms, to "the other woman').
 Smuggled stones vanish as did the Maximlian crown rubies brought from Mexico.
 Others hide out of nervous distaste for publicity or for tax gatherers Only after Queen Victoria's death was the long missing Timur ruby found. This Is perhaps the most wonderful of all rubies-an uncut stone weighing 352 carats. Taken in successive Indian con- quests it finally found it's way to the private collection of Victoria. She, how ever said nothing about it and 1t was not heard of again till her gems were inventoried. Being difficult to match sizable ru- bies are mostly set solidarity In rings and pendants. It was so in the col lection of the dispossessed Turkish sul- tan. Yet I have it on authority that William Astor collected and gave to his wife, mother of John Jacob, a neck lace of fabulous value. known to jew elers the world over" Each of Mrs. As tors stones measured large, and the string, which was long. was among her bequests.
 After her death and after the estate had been settled. no trace could be found of these wonderful jewels. Were they traded in" for that string of els-Knickerbocker Astor and Ap- thorpe?
 There is a record of a purest pigeons blood weighing a fraction above IS carats sold by a Chicago importer to John W. Gates MT. Gates paid ESQ., 900 for it nine years ago. What became of the 11-carat ruby imported from India for a client by | A famous New York jeweler cannot be disclosed. It was invoiced at the cus- tom house at s5O,oOo. Frequently t
 shines in the "jeweled horseshoe" of
 the Metropolitan opera, at the throat of a woman who is of. the few who take revenertial pleasure in the simple possession of the real thing. James J. HilL builder of the north
 west empire" declares he has no in-
 terest in precious stones. Yet one of his St. Paul friends relates:
 MT. Hill Is devoted fancier of un- set rubies. He always wears a cutaway coat and I've seen him put hand in the tail pocket and pull out fist full of them and scatter them on his desk, taking joy in the glancing color "once I came upon him in a jewellers shop in New York. He was exam ming a ruby necklace. and saying
 That stone is Burma, this is from North Carolina, this one is a poor Sian and that's a reconstructed He told
 the rosy beads down to the end and the
 white haired jeweler back of the coun.
 ter remarked to me: I've been in this business 35 years, but Mir. Hill ha!
 me beaten on offhand judgment of ru
 bies.'"
 Perhaps what Kitchens observes in hi' story of the slave of jewels Is no wholly fantastic. "They like men ant women who like them. quite as the res ! of us"
 1 one who merely deals in rubies ma. never be sure without using the al 7 chroiscope whether the specimen un der his eye Is genuine and natural. Blu ' 1t will yield up a sign to ardent fan ciers Of such was T. H. Hartman
 h public the foremost railroad ma