Featured Please Help! Strange hallmarks on a ruby gold ring

Pretty good chance OP's stone is too. Small synthetic rubies were on the market at the start of the 20th century. The USSR seems to have been a big producer & exporter of large synthetic corundums & these stones turn up in the jewellery of client states.

 

Thanks so much for sharing this! Very informative indeed!

I read about the letters added only till 1939 in this thread here https://www.antiquers.com/threads/identify-foreign-gold-mark-14k-band.39532/

Also the description below mentions something like that, but i don't know if I interpret this correctly?



Ps. I am getting a whole new appreciation for antique jewelry from talking to you guys! So thanks a lot for all the info!

 

Thanks a lot for finding this! The ring looks similar indeed but the ruby on my ring is much more pretty . I know, it is highly likely that the ruby is synthetic, a bit too big to be a real one. But I will get it tested for a peace of mind, also curious to see how such testing is done. Will keep you posted!

 

A synthetic can test the same as a natural stone,a visual test for inclusions but some synthetics have the same inclusions as natural stones.

 

The translation doesn't say that the letters were used until 1939, just that the meaning of the letters shown were valid until 1939 (when other letters were added for other cities and, apparently, the meaning/city of some letters changed - V for Vilno became V for Wroclaw, according to the illustrations already shown in this thread).
As for your link to the previous thread on Polish gold marks, I'm afraid I must disagree with our wonderful and knowledgeable @Any Jewelry on this point.

THIS and THIS mostly show silver hallmarks but the dating indicators for gold are similar. Note the silver scarved female head first faced left, then changed to facing right post-1963 - the opposite of how the gold helmeted male head was first oriented right-facing then changed to left-facing post-1963.
In 1986, Poland apparently began using actual 3-digit fineness numbers instead of the single digit fineness number, for both silver and gold. Also one of the links indicates that Poland went back to using the single digit gold fineness number in 2012 (I haven't researched if this is true, since I don't own any modern Polish jewelry). Here is an example of the post-1986 mark in gold (not my ring). (Odd that it's 583, not 585.)



Here is a coral ring I own, passed down through my Polish grandmother and maiden aunt. Note the left-facing helmeted head, c.1963-1986, which fits exactly with the oral history claiming 1970s. (The photo doesn't show the mark very well, but it has a 3, the figure, and a W.)



So, in summary, some significant dates for identifying the age of Polish jewelry are:
~Pre-1963 the figure faces one way, post-1963 it faces the opposite way. Gold helmeted male head goes from right-facing to left, silver scarved female head goes from left-facing to right.
~1986: the single-digit fineness number is dropped in favor of the actual 3-digit fineness number.

A repeat of my disclaimer: I'm not an expert in this field, the info given was simply gleaned from extensive time/searching of the internet.