A girl pans in a stream near Mogok, Myanmar, which is estimated to produce 90% of the world’s rubies. The area, 450 km north of the capital, Napyidaw, also hosts sapphire and semiprecious lapis lazuli, garnet, moonstone, peridot and chrysoberyl. This ‘Valley of Rubies’, in the former Burma, is a source of ‘pigeon’s blood’ rubies, a 25.59 ct variety of which last year sold for a staggering £19.3-million at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva. In Singapore, this month, the London Aim-listed Gemfields will be auctioning rough ruby mined at its 75%-owned Montepuez ruby deposit, in Mozambique.