Alan Caplan Ruby: costliest Ruby for 17 years

One of the finest rubies in the World - 15.97 carats Alan Caplan Ruby aka Mogok Ruby. Photo courtesy: Sothebys

Alan Caplan Ruby also known as the Mogok Ruby¹, is a 15.97-carat, unheated, natural ruby with a beautiful cushion-cut, and an eye clean clarity. It has an intense red color approaching the benchmark pigeon’s blood color for rubies. The gemstone also has good translucency and is one of the finest rubies in the world.

It gets its name from Alan Caplan the famous geologist and mineralogist who purchased the stone while on a trip to Burma in the 1960s or 1970s, exact date/year is unknown. The Ruby was mined in the Mogok Stone Tract of Burma, the world’s premier source of rubies since the 15th century.

Origin of Rubies in Mogok
The town of Mogok is surrounded by hills rising to a height of 2300 to 2400 meters (7400 to 7700 feet). The hills that surround the Mogok area are a part of the eastern Himalayan orogenic system, that was formed by the collision of the Indian sub-continental tectonic plate with the Eurasian tectonic plate, about 40 to 60 million years ago. The energy produced during this tectonic activity helped in the transformation of corundum containing igneous rocks to metamorphic rocks by contact metamorphism. The metamorphic rocks produced were mainly crystalline limestone (marble). Millions of years of weathering released the rubies from their limestone matrix, which were then carried down the hills and deposited in the valleys below, forming placer deposits, where the rubies were mined.

After purchasing the ruby in Burma, Alan Caplan got it cut and polished. In October 1988, the ruby was put up for auction by Sotheby’s of New York, where it was purchased by Laurence Graff for a sum of $3,630,000 dollars (which works out to $227,301 per carat). This was the highest amount ever paid per carat for a ruby in the world until then, a record that it held until the year 2006. It was also one of the highest per carat prices paid for any gemstone in the world. Laurence Graff mounted the valuable ruby on an engagement ring, which was later bought by the gem connoisseur, the Sultan of Brunei.

I'd love to know your thoughts on this beautiful, the only of its kind creation of Mother Nature, Alan Caplan Ruby aka Mogok Ruby.

¹Mogok is the name of a Ruby mine. In general any Ruby from the mine maybe (& is) referred to as a Mogok Ruby but Alan Caplan Ruby is renowned as the Mogok Ruby because it is one of the finest  Rubies of over 25cts. (rough) that has ever been discovered in the mine. Mogok mine for Rubies is no longer operational.

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Sambhav Karnawat
K.K. Exports
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