Extremely rare star ruby ​​worth nearly $100 million

Wayne Messer, a fishing guide in North Carolina, USA, discovered traces of corundum, the crystalline mineral that creates rubies and sapphires, while walking along a streambed in the Appalachian Mountains in the western part of the state in 1990, according toMother Nature NetworkMesser dug 2.4 meters deep and found a total of four extremely rare star rubies weighing 342 carats, later named the Mountain Star Ruby Collection.

A ruby ​​named the "Appalachian Ruby Star" in the collection is among the largest star rubies ever found. The ruby ​​weighs 139.43 carats and is slightly larger than the 138.72 carat Rosser Reeves Star Ruby on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

“I was amazed and amazed that nature could create such a large gemstone,” said Sam Fore, the gem cutter who cut Messer’s Appalachian Star Ruby. “It originally weighed 377 carats. That stone alone is a world record.”

Rubies are exceptionally rare compared to diamonds, but star rubies are even rarer. The bright star pattern is revealed when the stone is cut into a domed shape, reflecting light from the needle-like titanium crystal inside the stone. Known as asterism, this optical phenomenon also occurs in other gemstones such as sapphire.

In October 1992, the Appalachian Star Ruby exhibition at the London Museum of Natural History attracted an estimated 150,000 people. According to Garden & Gun, the collection had been put up for sale several times over the years, with estimates reaching nearly $100 million. Years after Messer died of cancer, his family decided to sell the collection through the New York auction house Guernsey's. According to Arlan Ettinger, founder and director of Guernsey's, the Messer family would only agree to sell all four rubies at once.