The pigeon-blood designation premium is the additional value that the trade assigns to a ruby bearing a formal pigeon-blood colour designation on its laboratory report, over and above what the same stone would fetch without that designation. The premium is not a fixed percentage; it varies with origin, treatment status, weight class, and the issuing laboratory, and ranges in practice from approximately 20 per cent at the low end to 60 per cent or more for exceptional unheated Burmese material at auction. The designation, in this respect, functions as a transferable value asset that travels with the stone and supports its resale across the international market.

What the premium reflects

The designation crystallises into a single line on a laboratory report a judgement that experienced trade buyers would otherwise have to form by eye. Once the designation is in place, the stone is positioned in a recognised top tier that is intelligible across the international market — to Geneva, New York, Hong Kong, and Bangkok buyers alike — and the value premium reflects this market clarity. A buyer paying the premium is paying not only for the colour but for the certainty of resale at the upper level of the market.

The premium also reflects the absolute scarcity of stones meeting the criteria. The laboratories that issue the designation are deliberate gatekeepers, and the population of stones bearing a pigeon-blood call from any of the leading laboratories is small in any given year. Buyers competing for the designation are competing for membership in a closed set, and the price reflects that.

How the premium varies

The premium is highest for unheated Burmese rubies above approximately 3 carats, where the combination of origin, treatment status, and pigeon-blood designation defines the apex of the ruby market. For these stones, the designation can add 50 per cent or more to the price compared with an otherwise identical ruby that falls just short of the criteria. For heated Burmese material, the premium is typically 30 to 40 per cent. For Mozambican rubies, where origin commands a smaller premium to begin with, the pigeon-blood designation typically adds 25 to 40 per cent.

The issuing laboratory affects the size of the premium. Designations from Gübelin, SSEF, Lotus Gemology, and AGL — the laboratories with the strongest international standing for ruby — command the largest premiums. GRS designations carry weight in the Asian trade and are common in the auction record but trade discussion of the GRS sub-grades has at times reduced the premium effect at certain levels. Smaller commercial laboratories may use pigeon-blood language but their designations rarely command the same trade premium.

Weight class affects the premium materially. Below approximately 1 carat the premium is more modest, partly because the designation is harder to attain at small sizes and partly because small rubies trade in a more commoditised market where calibrated supply rather than per-carat colour benchmarks drives pricing. The premium scales upward sharply through the 1-to-5-carat range and reaches its maximum effect for stones above 5 carats where the designation transforms the market position of the stone.

Auction record

The auction record provides the clearest evidence of the premium effect. The Sunrise Ruby — a 25.59-carat unheated Burmese ruby with Gübelin and SSEF pigeon-blood designations — sold at Sotheby's Geneva in 2015 for $30.4 million, a per-carat figure that established a new ceiling for ruby and was directly referenced by the trade as supported by the pigeon-blood call. Subsequent results for stones with comparable designation language — including several rubies above 10 carats sold at Christie's and Sotheby's Geneva and Hong Kong sales between 2018 and 2024 — have continued to set high benchmarks across the principal sales.

For comparison, otherwise comparable unheated Burmese rubies that fall just short of the designation typically sell at 60 to 70 per cent of the price-per-carat achieved by their designated counterparts. The discount is not uniform, but the consistency of the pattern across multiple sales is sufficient evidence that the trade treats the designation as a value-bearing distinction rather than a cosmetic addition to the report.

When the premium does not apply

The premium attaches to the designation, not to the trade description. A dealer asserting that a stone is pigeon blood without supporting laboratory documentation will typically not be able to charge the full premium, and a buyer paying the premium is entitled to the report. For stones with marginal claim to the designation, the cost of the premium-tier laboratory report has to be weighed against the probability of the call being made; submission strategy is part of the trade discipline at this level of the market.

The premium also does not apply uniformly across treatment categories. A ruby with significant clarity enhancement, lead-glass filling, or beryllium diffusion will not attain the designation regardless of apparent colour, and the trade's discount for these stones is correspondingly steep. The designation, when present, signals not only colour quality but the absence of disqualifying treatments — a dual function that contributes to the size of the premium.

Further reading

• Lotus Gemology — pigeon-blood criteria and discussion
• GIA Gems & Gemology — ruby market and origin articles
• AGTA — coloured-stone trade references