Those who have read Out of Africa or An Ice Cream War, or remember Bogart in The African Queen, will know that "The Great War" was also fought in Africa. But they are unlikely to have heard of the Battle of Merkerstein, a minor skirmish a hundred kilometers north of Arusha, in what was then part of German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika). It was there, near Longido, around the turn of the year 1914/1915, that the first gems were found in East Africa, or so it is said. A soldier who presumably had other things on his mind saw a bright red stone, a ruby. Was he British or German? Usually he is reported to have been a German but it can depend on who tells the story.
Longido rubies are found encased in a very hard matrix-rock called anyolite (from anyoli, Masai for "green") but in Tanzania even the Masai say "ruby-in-zoisite". Over a dozen similar localities have been found over the decades but extracting the rubies has in all cases been an insurmountable problem.

Our rubies

In 1974 our father discovered a different type of deposit in Kenya's Tsavo Park West and, although the deposit no longer produces the top quality rubies which made it famous, we are still able to offer a few stones from what has come to be known as the John Saul Ruby Mine. We are always amused when we meet cutters, colleagues and competitors from the Far East who think that "johnsaul" is the English word for a particular shade of nearly pure red.
These rubies have a distinctive pink touch to them. As for most rubies, these are usually quite included and are thus mainly cabochon cuts. They are also all unheated which is not common nowadays.

Chemistry: AL₂O₃
System: Hexagonal
Hardness: 9
Density: 4
Ref. Index: 1.759-1.778
Birefringence:
Pleochroism: dichroic

Ruby on our website:
The John Saul Ruby Mine

Ruby on the Internet :
View ruby information on mindat.org
Ruby on the ICA website
Le rubis sur le site de l'ICA

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