All About Sapphires

In earlier times, some people believed that the universe was an enormous blue sapphire in which the Earth was embedded. Could there be a more visual image to describe the beauty of an elegant sapphire? And yet, this gem comes not in one but in all the blue shades of the color spectrum, from the deep blue of the evening sky to the shining mid-blue of a beautiful field of cornflowers.which casts its spell over us.

Blue is the main color of the sapphire. Blue is also the favorite color of some fifty percent of all people, men and women alike. We associate this color, strongly linked to the sapphire as it is, with feelings of sympathy and harmony, friendship and loyalty. Thus the blue of the sapphire has become a color which fits in with everything that is constant and reliable. That is one of the reasons why women in many countries wish for a sapphire ring on their engagement. The sapphire symbolises loyalty, but at the same time it gives expression to people's love and longing.

What makes the sapphire so fancy?

A sapphire's beauty, its breath taking color, its transparency, but also its constancy and durability are qualities associated with this gemstone by jewelry lovers and specialists alike. The sapphire belongs to the corundum group, the members of which are characterized by their excellent hardness (9 on the Mohs scale). Indeed their hardness is exceeded only by that of the diamond – and the diamond is the hardest mineral on Earth! Thanks to that hardness, sapphires are easy to look after, requiring no more than the usual care on the part of the wearer.

The gemstones in the corundum group consist of pure aluminium oxide which crystallizes into wonderful gemstones a milllenium past as a result of pressure and heat at a great depth. The presence of small trace amounts of transitional elements, such as iron,titanium and chromium (the chromium transitional element in corundum results in ruby), are responsible for the coloring, turning a crystal that was essentially white into a blue, red, yellow, pink or greenish sapphire.

If there is talk of the sapphire, most gemstone aficionados think immediately of a velvety blue. It's a versatile color that becomes many wearers. A blue sapphire fits in best with a well balanced lifestyle in which reliability and temperament run together and there is always a readiness to encounter things new – as with the woman who wears it. The fact that this magnificent gemstone also comes in a large number of other colors was known for a long time almost only to insiders. In the trade, sapphires which are not blue or red are referred to as 'fancies'. In order to make it easier to differentiate between them, they are referred to not only by their gemstone name but also by a description of their color. In other words, fancy sapphires are described as yellow, purple, pink, green or white sapphires. Fancy sapphires are pure individualism and are just made for lovers of individualistic colored stone jewellery. They are currently available in a positively enchanting variety of designs - as ring stones, necklace pendants or ear jewellery, as solitaires, strung elegantly together or as sparkling pavé.

However, the sapphire has yet more surprises in store. For example, there is an orange variety with a fine pink undertone which bears the poetic name 'padparadscha', which means something like 'lotus flower'. The star sapphires are another sapphire variety, half-dome-cut sapphires with a star like phenomena called "asterism". A four, six or sometime twelve ray star which seems to glide across the surface of the stone when it is rocked back and forth.Cat's Eye or Chatoyancy is another sapphire phenomenon albeit extremely rare. And, last but not least color-change sapphire which changes color from blue to purple when lit by daylight or incandescent lighting.

Top-quality sapphires are rare

Sapphires are found in India, Burma, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, Brazil and Africa. From the gemstone mines, the raw crystals are first taken to the cutting centers where they are turned into sparkling gemstones by skilled hands. When cutting a sapphire, the cutter has to muster all his skill, for these gemstones are not only hard. Depending on the angle from which you look at them they also have different colors and intensities of color. So it is the job of the cutter to orientate the raw crystals in such a way that the color is most intense.

When shopping for a sapphire it is always best to observe a sapphires color in daylight, however, ruby is best observed in incandescent lighting. So in fact it is not, as is often claimed, the darkest tone that is the most coveted color of the blue sapphire, but an intense, rich, full blue which still looks blue in poor artificial light. Not too light and not too dark.

Specialists and connoisseurs regard the Kashmir blue color with its velvety shine as the most beautiful and most valuable blue. These magnificent gemstones from Kashmir, found in 1880 after a landslide at an altitude of 16,000 feet and mined intensively over a period of eight years, were to have a lasting influence on people's idea of the color of a first-class sapphire. Typical of the Kashmir color is a pure, intense blue with a very subtle violet undertone, which is intensified yet more by a fine, silky shine. It is said that this hue does not change in artificial light. But the Burmese color is also regarded as particularly valuable. It ranges from a rich, full royal blue to a deep cornflower blue.

The specialist recognizes Ceylon sapphires by the luminosity of their light to mid-blue colors and their brilliant dispersion. Most commercial sapphires come from Thailand and are a dark blue color or Australia and are usually a dark inky blue.Burmese sapphire are a highly saturated medium to medium dark blue (royal blue)which may appear very inky in incandescent light, but are considered to be very fine sapphires.

Their value depends on their size, color and transparency. With stones of very fine quality, these are, however, not the only main criteria, the origin of the gem also playing a major role. Neither is the color itself necessarily a function of the geographical origin of a sapphire, which explains the great differences in price between the various qualities. The most valuable are genuine Kashmir stones. Burmese sapphires are valued almost as highly, and then come the sapphires from Ceylon. The possibility of the gemstone's having undergone some treatment or other is also a factor in determining the price, since gemstones which can be guaranteed untreated are becoming more and more sought-after by purists and collectors.

It is not often that daring pioneers discover gemstones on a scale such as was the case on Madagascar a few years ago, when a gemstone deposit covering an area of several miles was found in the south-east of the island. Since then, not only have there been enough blue sapphires in the trade, but also some splendid pink and yellow sapphires of great beauty and transparency. Meanwhile, experts in Tanzania have also found initial evidence of two large-scale gemstone deposits in the form of some good, if not very large sapphire crystals colored blue, green, yellow and orange. And the third country to register new finds recently was Brazil, where sapphires ranging from blue to purple and pink have been discovered. So lovers of the sapphire need not worry: there will, in future, be enough of these 'heavenly' gems with the fine color spectrum. Top-quality sapphires, however, remain extremely rare in all the gemstone mines of the world.