I have a riddle for you. This is strictly older generation stuff…
so if you’re younger than 60 I tend to doubt you’ll know the answer.
But… one never knows… does one? Ready? What song had these lines
in it:
“He had rubies and pearls, and the loveliest girls
But he didn’t know how to do the rumba.”
I will not tell you the answer
I will not sell you the answer
I will not hand you the answer
I will not stand for no answer…
Well… actually… I will stand for an answer. And… I will be
impressed. Let me know if you know… and I’ll tell you next week if
you’re right.
And now… for a little slight of segue folks… watch this: “He had
rubies and pearls, and…” And… do you have any idea how scarce
and expensive a gem quality ruby is? No? Then I will tell you. When
a ruby is of gem quality… this means perfect folks… and when it
exceeds about six carats… it is sold for whatever money the seller
wants… no questions asked… no bargaining tolerated. And that is
how expensive a gem quality ruby is.
Tavernier… explorer extraordinaire… made six trips to India in
order to find the finest gems for his royal clients. Talk about
having a following.
The Mogok area of Upper Burma not far from Mandalay is where one
might… under optimal conditions… find corundum in combination
with chromium–this last is the element that gives the ruby its red
coloring. So … one day… when you have a little spare time on your
hands (actually… with the way the economy is going this might be
sooner than you think) you might want to try taking a little trek up
to ruby country to find what you can find.
For example… I have an image of a ruby weighing over sixteen
carats. As of 1993 it was worth a cool 2.8 million smackeroos. So…
how rare is a gem ruby? Well… there are scant few of them that are
‘named’ stones. Two of them (the only two I know of)… the Black
Princess Ruby and the Timur Ruby… both part of the British Crown
Jewels… were later discovered to be spinels. This leaves very very
few ‘named’ rubies… if any.
He had rubies and pearls, and the loveliest girls… c’mon… what’s
the name of the song? And while you’re at it… who wrote it?
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits…may I
direct you to my home page at www.tyler-adam.com where you will
scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that says
Current Tidbits… and then click on it in order to view an oval
ruby weighing 16.517 carats mounted between lunette-shaped diamond
shoulders and worth 2.8 million dollars about 15 years ago.
And there ya have it.
That’s it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark