Mar 30, 2014
Sapphire Engagement Rings: A Rainbow of Colors
LISA
Sapphire Colors for Engagement Rings
The Many Colors of Sapphire
The traditional color of sapphire for an engagement ring is a blue sapphire. The highest quality blue sapphire would be a rich, deep royal blue Ceylon sapphire. However, blue is not the only color found in sapphire! Another extremely rare and valuable sapphire is a Padparadscha sapphire, a deep saturated pinkish-orange color. Not all peach sapphires are classified as Padparadscha sapphire, but a nice peach sapphire is still rare! Purple sapphire and pink sapphire are close to the top of this list in popularity, and while green sapphire is not often sought after, it can be found in shades of blue, green, and yellow-green, and it can be absolutely gorgeous, surrounded by white diamonds.
Sapphire Hardness
Moh's Hardness Scale
Sapphire is a great choice for colored center stones because of its hardness. It measures nine on the Moh's hardness scale (listed on this scale as corundum). Diamond comes in as the hardest material on Earth at a 10. The scale is exponential, however, as sapphire has an absolute hardness of 400, and diamond comes in at 1600. Still, sapphire beats out the softer alternatives. We get many requests for garnet or tourmaline engagement rings, and because of the softer ranking of other semi-precious gemstones, sapphire is always the first "go-to" stone for color. Softer stones will become abraided over time, making them appear matte or milky. Of course, you might also consider a fancy colored diamond.
Sapphire Certification
Sapphire Certificate
Sapphire is not graded by the same 4 C's as a diamond. As a matter of fact, very few sapphires are even certified. The reason a sapphire would be certified is if it is an usually large or fine specimen (rare and valuable), or if it is truly unheated, and even then, it's usually just the larger or finer gems that are certified.
Different Sapphire Cuts
Sapphire Cut
How is the cut of a sapphire judged? Each sapphire is cut by hand, so each stone has to be looked at individually. You want to see the light flashing back to your eyes as you move the stone. If the center of the stone shows no flashes of light, that would be considered "windowing." It's not uncommon for sapphires to be very deep, as the original "native cut," or cut from factories overseas, is intended to maintain weight and saturation of the color and typically has rectangular-shaped facets. A quality sapphire is usually re-cut by the US vendor. Some sapphires are considered "diamond cut," which means that the cut mimics the cut of a diamond. These can be very sparkly, especially for smaller sapphires. A "Portuguese cut" gives the stone more depth and has many little kite-shaped facets. Whatever stone you choose, simply make sure that you like the play of light when you look at the stone.
Sapphire Clarity
Sapphire dealers do not assign the diamond clarity scale to sapphires. We will often get questions like "is it VVS or VS? We do not grade sapphires against the diamond scale. What you want to look for in the clarity of a sapphire is that it is eye-clean. In other words, you cannot see inclusions with your naked eye (without magnification). Is that mandatory? Of course not! If you find a rare color in a specific shape, you may have to love it even if it has some small internal characteristic visible to the naked eye. All kinds of inclusions and internal characteristics can be found in sapphire, including clouds, feathers, and color zoning. Finer sapphires are eye-clean and solid color (free of significant inclusions or color zoning) even under 10x magnification.Sapphire Treatment
Vintage Sapphire Engagement Rings
Vintage Sapphire Engagement Ring
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