Tell me what you think

OK so  I have seen the high end jewelers that will charge $10,000 a carat for geuine Burmese Rubies. Must have to charge that much because there is an embargo on all products from Burma (Myanmar) right now. Question is when I see them in the markets in Thailand the price for these same rubies is often $500 a carat depending on stone size. The argument I get with them is that these are the only real rubies. Rubies from Viet Nam, Thailand and Africa are all over the place and unless you have a real good eye you cannot tell where a stone was born. Even GIA the leading gemological lab and school in the world will not give an origin on thier certifications because they can only guess. One thing that has to be understood is that the retailer wants to get as much money as possible and for centuries/eons Burmese Pidgeon Blood Red has been the apogee of the the Ruby world. How many of us out there have ever seen pidgeon blood? What is the comparison. So I ask what makes them worth so much and others so little. Marketing, same as diamonds. The Diamond market is held by the throat by 1 major company that has millions if not billions to tell you that a "Diamond is forever" and how rare they are. Wrong Diamond is a very common gem when compared to others. But DB has done a great job of convincing the public otherwise. Truth be told diamonds are rare only because DB only releases so many at a time and only to selected buyers. The best diamonds are some times held back to drive the price up and then trickled onto the market to once again selected buyers.

So that brings up alternatives in the gem market, getting away from diamonds and back to rubies. I have in 1 hour in Chanataburi Thailand seen $1,000,000 in rubies cross the table in front of me in a given afternoon. None were from Burma and all were beautiful, well some were. Some were no better that river gravel with a red tint. The Burmese rubies that are available are mostly the same as the rubies of other origins. Mong Hsu rubies are treated like most others with a modern heat treating which involves glass filling of fractures to make them suitable for jewelry. Heat treating is also done to enhance the color to the more desirable reds. This is common practice and 99% of all rubies are treated this way. So to the point what would rather have? What is your opinion? Spend enough for a small car or even a house or have a beautiful stone that will take a microscope to tell you that they still dont know its birthplace and that it has been treated ?