VW Clarity Enhanced Ruby?

Burmese rubies on Evine tonight.  Very pretty.

I believe rareities has glass filled rubies.  I think as long as it is disclose it then it is your choice.  I find I am purchasing more jewelry from Evine they give a lot of detail during their presentations.  Especially gems En Vogue by Michael V. He is very thorough about where his gem stones are from and if they have had any treatment whatsoever.  I do like VW absolute jewelry.  I have a couple of rings and very good quality.

An update to my previous post about Burmese rubies (Myanmar).  As of October 2016 the ban was lifted on importing jade and rubies from Burma, according to an article I saw.  I need to look into it more, but JTV is already showing more Jadite jewelry.  Of course, the price of those Burmese rubies are going to be a whole lot more than the glass filled, and the expensive ones have some treatments also that still require special care.

What is the difference between color enhanced and glass filled? Can they mean the same thing?

There are laws that say a seller has to disclose any treatments about a gemstone that is sold.  It does not say how prominant that information has to be, but it is a law.  If you buy something that was misrepresented to you, you do have legal recourse and I know for a fact that you can win.  I won’t drag you all through that.  The whole industry hinges on how close they can come to the truth without breaking that law.  For example, GIA may call the glass filled rubies ‘manufactured’ but that is just a recommendation to their certified graders and appraisers.  I am one.  But it is not a law.  The law says the term ‘natural’ can be applied to a gem if it came out of the ground, regardless of what happened to it afterward.  So a glass filled ruby is a ‘natural, treated’ gem.  What you have to look into is the type of treatment and if it’s acceptable to you.  A gem that cannot be called natural is a lab created gem, but even that is not ‘synthetic’.  It will test as a natural gem because it grew from a crystal of a natural gem and has all the properties of a natural gem.  The non-legal term ‘real’ can be applied to lab created rubies so watch for that.  Since it is illegal to import rubies from Burma (Myanmar) we have to accept substandard rubies.  But even Burma rubies were heat treated.  A one caret ruby from Madagascar costs $30 loose retail.  A one caret ruby from Burma cost over $800 loose.  So how much are you willing to accept?  Are you buying for your estate or for your wardrobe?  And what choice does the designer or manufacturer have if he/she wants to use a big red stone in their designs.  Is a glass filled ruby better than a CZ?  We could debate that all day.  If you managed to read through all this, my final point is, look for the area that tells you how the gem was treated, by law it has to be somewhere in the description even if they don’t mention it on air.  You might have to go on-line to find it.  Personally, I think their description, or lack there of, of the metals are as misleading as the gemstone descriptions.  Bottom line, “Common and acceptable” is your judgement call, it’s not a legal term no matter how often they say it.  If you buy alot of jewelry study up.  It’s actually very interesting.  One disclamer, I’ve been out of the business for a while so I hope my facts are still straight.  Hope this helps some.

I was also shocked and a bit disturbed when I saw  Carol Brodie using nothing but glass filled ruby. And the prices she charges are over the top. But, Victoria Wieck? I, too, was quite surprised. There’s another tv retailer of jewelry, JTV, and they make it very clear in each presentation they are selling what they call mahaleo ruby. That is their version of glass filled gem. So I won’t buy that gem from them. I have started purchasing other jewelry at JTV as it is much less expensive than HSN. I still prefer HSN, though, and watch on & off all day, each day. And, I believe the jewelry from HSN is a better quality overall.

I rarely buy any jewelry anymore simply because you have no way of knowing what you are actually being sold.There are so many treatments/processes allowed now that you may be buying bottom of the barrel stuff for top dollar.I was shocked when I started researching terms attached to descriptions on stones when I was planning a gift purchase.Even with diamonds these things are done..I am shocked at some of the prices now on items that are just a step above costume jewelry..There has always been a huge markup on jewelry and you can rarely expect to ever get what you paid for it even if you buy it on sale..I always remember when I see apprasied value then a 70% off sale because if it was really worth what they say they could never sell it to me at such a loss.I only buy something for a want and never for investment or assume its worth what I paid except for personal value.

According to the GIA these start as ruby of such poor quality that they would never be used for jewerly. Lead glass and is used to fill cracks and bring the color up to that ruby red color. 

It became apparent that this treatment was going to be very significant to the industry (Roskin, 2004).The starting material was very low quality, translucent-to-opaque, non-gem rough from Madagascar(Pardieu, 2005). By a process that involved low-temperatureheating, cleaning in an acid bath, and then filling with a high-lead-content glass, this non-gemcorundum was transformed into transparent, facetablematerial . This made available hugeamounts of treated rubies that were usually sold at very low prices.

They say this leaves the stone very fragile and will fall apart with in a few years of regular wear.

To determine a glass filled ruby; it is usually much cheaper in cost, and under a loop or magnifier look for water bubbles, flatened water bubbles, and flashes that are not characteristic of the stone. 

To care for a glass filled ruby NEVER use a cleaning solvent as it will shorten the already short life of the treated stone.

The GIA prefers the term “manufactured ruby” so that the consumer knows what the stone really is…. a very very low grade ruby that in their opinion should never be used for jewerly.

Now I have to call out Carol Brodie again for calling glass filled ruby “genuine” on many presentations. I love you Carol but shame on you. And you too Ms. Connie.

I had no idea!

If you have to double check what your being told on the TV,

by looking up the item details on line, you don’t trust the seller. 

Not everyone has the means to check the details before buying.

I don’t understand why the item details like this, are not disclosed on air.

You are correct SouthernBelle, HSN’s “glass filled rubies” are considered by the GIA to be “manufactured” and not real.  This has been brought up numerous times before.  HSN refuses to address the issue.  Although Collen Lopez sold these fake rubies as “genuine”, and recently she was selling non-fake rubies and said “these aren’t glass fillled” and let out a huge laugh, like it was ok that the poor people that had bought the fake rubies from her before were stupid.

Wow, thanks for letting us know.