Only 256 currently in stock.
**Ruby in Albite Tumble — Fluoresces Bright Red Under 365nm UV!**
**$5 each**
Two minerals, one pocket stone — and one element does all the work. Chromium gives the ruby crystals their pink-to-red color AND makes them glow. Hit one of these tumbles with a 365nm UV light and every ruby in it blazes bright red against the pale stone, just like the photos. In regular light it's a smooth, tumble-polished stone in creamy white and grey, sprinkled with pink-to-magenta ruby crystals.
**What it is:** Ruby is the red variety of corundum — the same mineral family as sapphire, and at Mohs 9 it's second only to diamond in hardness. Albite is a white sodium feldspar (its name comes from the Latin *albus*, meaning white, for its color), with a hardness around 6 to 6.5. Ruby in albite is a metamorphic rock that formed deep in the Earth's crust, where aluminum-rich rock was cooked under enormous heat and pressure until ruby crystals grew scattered through the pale feldspar. These are tumble polished — rolled smooth with rounded edges, no sharp corners — so they're perfect pocket stones.
**Where it's mined:** Most ruby in albite on the market, including these tumbles, comes from southern India — mainly the metamorphic belts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. India is one of the oldest ruby sources on Earth: rubies have been dug from Indian soil and traded there for over 2,000 years. The ruby-bearing rock is mined from small pits and shallow workings in deeply weathered ground, then the rough is tumbled and polished by Indian lapidaries.
**A little ruby history:** Ruby has been prized for thousands of years, and India is where much of that story starts. In ancient Sanskrit it was called *ratnaraj* — "king of precious stones" — and ancient Indian lapidary texts like the *Ratna Pariksha* were grading rubies by color and quality over a thousand years ago. Indian maharajas filled their treasuries with rubies, and India was famous for the stone centuries before the Burmese Mogok "Valley of Rubies" became known for its "pigeon's blood" red. Ruby is still July's birthstone and one of the four classic precious gems, alongside diamond, emerald, and sapphire. The chromium glow in these tumbles isn't just pretty — in 1960 physicist Theodore Maiman used a ruby crystal's red fluorescence to build the world's first working laser. And fun fact: the famous "Black Prince's Ruby" in the British Crown Jewels turned out to be a red spinel — real rubies were so desirable that even kings got fooled.
**Please note:** This is NOT a Yooperlite — Yooperlites are fluorescent sodalite from Lake Superior and glow orange. This is a different fluorescent mineral from India, and it glows RED. It makes a great companion piece for any fluorescent collection, and a great way to show off what your 365nm light can do.
**Details:**
- Natural ruby in albite, tumble polished, from India
- Under 1 ounce each — roughly quarter-sized, about 1 to 1.5 inches (see the photos with the US quarter for scale)
- Every tumble is one of a kind — ruby coverage ranges from a few spots to stones loaded with crystals, exactly like the range shown in the photos. You'll receive one tumble from this batch.
- Photos show the actual batch, in white light and under 365nm UV
**Care:** These are tumbles, so they're made to be handled — but handle with a little respect anyway. The rubies are Mohs 9, while the albite matrix is around 6 to 6.5, so don't toss them loose in a rock bucket with harder stones. Wipe clean with a damp cloth.
