How to Choose Sapphires for Jewelry
Your comprehensive guide to Buying a Best Quality Sapphire Ring
When you think about buying a sapphire for jewelry, whether it is for pure joy or investment most crucial thing is to buy the best sapphires that suit your budget.
Sapphire has been a highly sought-after gemstone for centuries. It is easy to see why. There is no doubt that sapphires are classy, elegant, stunningly beautiful, and connected with royalty. As a result, sapphires are one of the four gemstones frequently used in engagement rings and other jewelry.
Remember the Four Cs of judging the quality of Best sapphires.
Buying expensive gemstones can be a pretty tricky thing. But, thanks to specific guidelines, here’s a checklist to quickly determine if the gem you are getting is worth the money.
One of these popular guides is the 4 C’s of a diamond, a set of descriptions that help diamond enthusiasts critique a diamond. The same goes for a sapphire. But, of course, the sapphire also has its own set of 4Cs.
Color – determined by Hue, Saturation, and Tone
When examining a sapphire stone, look thoroughly at its Color. Does it have the color intensity and contrast that you want? Is it the right kind of blue? Is the saturation of Color evident? The higher the level of color saturation in a sapphire stone, the more expensive.
To the color scientist, given an opaque, matt-finished object, there are three dimensions to color:
- Hue position: The position of a color on a color wheel, i.e., red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Purple is intermediate between red and violet. White and black are lacking in hue and thus achromatic (‘without color’). Brown is not a hue in itself but covers a range of hues of low saturation (and often high darkness). Classic browns fall in yellow to orange hues.
- Saturation (intensity): The richness of color, or the degree to which a color varies from achromaticity (white and black are the two achromatic colors, each totally lacking in hue). When dealing with gems of the same basic hue position (i.e., rubies, which are all basically red in hue), differences in color quality are mainly related to differences in saturation. The strong red fluorescence of most rubies (the exception being those from the Thai/Cambodian border region) is an added boost to saturation, supercharging it past other gems that lack the effect.
- Darkness (tone or value): The degree of lightness or darkness of color as a function of the amount of light absorbed. White would have 0% darkness, and black 100%. At their maximum saturation, some colors are naturally darker than others. For example, a rich violet is darker than even the most highly saturated yellow, while the highest saturations of red and green tend to be of similar darkness.
With gems, we are not dealing with opaque, matt-finish objects of uniform color. Thus it is not enough to simply describe hue position, saturation, and darkness. We must also describe the color coverage, scintillation, and dispersion.
Color coverage:
Differences in inclusions, transparency, fluorescence, cutting, zoning, and pleochroism can produce vast differences in the color coverage of a gem, particularly faceted stones. A gem with a high degree of color coverage is one in which a color of high saturation is seen across a large portion of its face in regular viewing positions. Tiny light-scattering inclusions, such as rutile silk, can actually improve coverage, and thus appearance, by scattering light into areas it would not otherwise strike. The end effect is to give the gem a warm, velvety appearance (Kashmir sapphires are famous for this). Red fluorescence in ruby boosts this still further.
- Scintillation (‘sparkle’): This is a crucial factor in faceted stones. A gem cut with a smooth, cone-shaped pavilion could display full brilliance but would lack scintillation. Thus the use of small facets to create sparkle as the gem, light, or eye is moved. Large gems require more facets; small gems should have fewer, for tiny reflections cannot be individually distinguished by the eye (resulting in a blurred appearance).
- Dispersion (‘fire’): This involves splitting of white light into its spectral colors as it passes through two non-parallel surfaces (such as a prism). The dispersion of corundum is so low (0.028) and the masking effect of the rich body color so high that it is generally not a factor in ruby and sapphire evaluation.
Specific Colors
Some specific colors, such as Royal Blue, Intense Cornflower Blue, Cornflower Blue in Blue Sapphires, or Pigeon Blood Red in Rubies, are considered superior colors to the rest in the spectrum. Hence those gems are higher in price and also better investments.
Clarity – Every Natural sapphire has some inclusion.
Gemmologists judge Clarity by reference to inclusions. Magnification can be used to locate inclusions, but except for inclusions that might affect the durability, only those visible to the naked eye should influence the final grade.
There are two key factors in judging clarity. These are:
- Affect on durability
- Visibility
Like all other gems, sapphires have inclusions or imperfections, yet these little misses should not cause worry. It’s part of the natural build-up of these unique stones. You can give a perfect sapphire a shadow of a doubt because a gem with absolutely no inclusions can be synthetic. Go for a sapphire that has an inclusion but is not very visible; when it comes to grading a sapphire, the less visible the inclusions, the better.
Cut (‘Make’) – For the fire in your eyes
Aside from the actual blue magnificent Color of the sapphire, we can’t also resist the sparkle and fire in it. The secret to a sparkly sapphire stone? The way it is cut. When a sapphire has the right cut, it can bring out the best sparkle – brilliance and fire in the gemstone. The value of the sapphire depends on what proportions, cuts, faceting, windowing, and symmetry are in the gem.
Carat – Size does matter.
A sapphire’s size is expressed in weight measured in carats. A carat’s size has a direct relation to how it is valued. Stones that have higher carats come with a more expensive price tag. Large sapphires are much rarer than petite sapphires. Carat prices of sapphires are increasing exponentially with weight. For example, – a five-carat sapphire is worth many times more than five one Carat sapphires of comparable quality.
Fifth C – Country of Origin- Where the precious is unveiled of the best sapphires
The origin of the sapphire has a considerable influence on the value of the colored gemstone. The market pays the highest prices for sapphires from Kashmir, followed by Myanmar (Burma) and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) at comparable levels with a clear premium over all other countries with sapphire deposits. This has to do with the rarity of the deposits at first, but of course, the quality characteristics. New sapphire deposits, such as those in Madagascar almost ten years ago or in Thailand, is the exception rather than the rule; worldwide production volumes are declining significantly, especially in the mining regions that are known worldwide for their finest qualities.
Sapphire from all countries of origin, regardless of whether from Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Burma, Thailand, Africa, Australia, or the USA, all have the same chemical composition. They all belong to the mineral corundum. The difference lies in the geological conditions that created those sapphires; various trace elements have shaped them during their formation. Therefore there are differences in their qualities—quality characteristics like Color and saturation, brilliance, or liveliness. The shape of the rough stones, color criteria, the examination of inclusions, and the mineral’s respective growth structures provide information about a sapphire’s country of origin.
Make Sure it’s a Natural Sapphire.
Since the late 1800s, scientists have been able to make synthetic gemstones, including sapphires. These synthetic sapphires are almost identical to natural sapphires in their chemical makeup and appearance.
Synthetic gems were first made for industrial purposes. Today, however, they are also sold in the jewelry market. We always prefer the beauty and quality of natural sapphires and do not work with synthetic sapphires.
All our jewelry carries certified, ethically mined natural sapphires only.
Enhancements or treatments on Sapphires – None on the Best Sapphires
The term “enhancement” is a treatment or process other than cutting and polishing that improves a gemstone’s appearance (color/clarity/phenomena), durability, value, or availability. Various methods in today’s marketplaces have enhanced many gemstones. Such processes may range from simple heating to high-tech irradiation.
We don’t sell sapphires that have undergone harmful treatments and recommend that you should not invest in sapphires that have been treated with anything besides heat.
Yet as unheated sapphires are further rare in the market, the price can be even doubled compared to those with heat treatment. That’s not to say that a heated Sapphire will be cheap, just that a good quality unheated Sapphire is rarer.
Sapphire prices can change in a large spectrum depending on all those factors. Even if you find two Blue sapphires with the same size, shape, and cut, depending on the other factors price can be pretty different, unlike the diamonds. Each sapphire is unique, and its actual value depends on all those elements.
Only Buy a Sapphire That Comes With a Colored Stone Report
Sapphires do not receive a certificate like diamonds. Instead, sapphires receive a Colored Stone Report. Therefore, we recommend you buy a sapphire with a report from a reliable gem lab to know what you are purchasing. All our sapphires and sapphire jewelry come with a detailed report from accredited gemological labs.
Check out our Beautiful Unheated, untreated, natural Cornflower Blue Sapphire Rings.
References :
Ruby & Sapphire by Richard W. Hughes | 1997