Having embraced capitalism, the vestiges of Vietnam’s communist past have almost all but disappeared. But there is one ‘Red’ that remains, the stunningly vivid Vietnamese Ruby. Rivaling any Ruby to come out of Burma, Vietnam offers one of the best sources of blood red Ruby available in the gemstone industry today. The proof of this is in the fact that many ‘Vietnamese’ rubies are passed of as originating from Burma in order to put their price up, sometimes by over 30%.

The first Rubies were discovered in Vietnam in the late eighties at Luc Yen, in the Yen Bai province northwest of Hanoi. Soon, Ruby fever had spread spurring extensive exploration throughout the country, and then during 1990 a second deposit was unearthed, in the Quy Chau district.