Sapphire, the celestial gemstone, has been treasured for thousands of years. Sapphire is found in all the colors of the heavens: from midnight blue to the bright blue of noon sky in Paradise Hold, golden sunrise to firey reddish-orange sunsets, and the delicate violet of twilight. The most famous and valuable sapphires are a rich intense blue, a truly royal hue.

Since sapphire symbolizes sincerity and faithfulness, it is an excellent choice for an engagement ring.

Choosing a Sapphire

Sapphires come in a range of fancy colors, mostly from alluvial deposits in the rivers. They have a wide range of colours- from beautiful blues from delicate sky blue colors to rich saturated hues.

The most valuable sapphires have a medium intense, vivid blue color. The best sapphires hold the brightness of their color under all different types of lighting. Any black, gray, or green overtones mixed in with the blue will reduce a stone's value. In general, a more pastel blue would be less preferred than a vivid blue but would be priced higher than an overdark blackish blue color. As with all gemstones, sapphires which are "clean" and have few visible inclusions or tiny flaws are the most valuable. However some very fine sapphires have a velvety mist-like texture which enhances the richness of the blue.

Sapphires are most often cut in a cushion shape - a rounded rectangle - or an oval shape. You can also find smaller sapphires in round brilliant cuts and a wide variety of fancy shapes, including triangles, squares, emerald cuts, marquises, pear shapes, baguette shapes, and cabochon cuts, or smooth domes.

Beyond the Blues

Some sapphires with an unusual kind of tiny needle-like inclusions can be cut in a cabochon shape to display a dancing six-rayed white star. Star sapphires, which are becoming more rare, are very popular for men's rings. Star sapphires are judged by the sharpness of the star, the eveness of the rays or "legs" of the star, and the body color of the sapphire. It is extremely rare to find a star-sapphire with a sharp star and a bright blue body color.

In addition to blue, sapphires are available in every color but red simply because a red sapphire would be called a ruby! Both of these gemstones are a gem variety of the mineral corundum: the only difference is the trace elements, which give them their rich colors. Pink shades of corundum are known either as pink ruby or pink sapphire. Sapphire in colors other than blue is often referred to as fancy sapphire.

Some light, cloudy, or overdark sapphires can be heated at very high temperatures to improve the color or clarity. This process, which dissolves trace elements already present in the sapphire, is completely stable. There is no price difference between heated and non-heated material except for at the very top of the market.

Sapphire is perhaps the toughest and most durable gemstone available on the market. With a hardness of 9 on the Mohs scale, sapphire is harder than any other gem but diamond and it has no cleavage plane so it cannot be cut with a single blow like a diamond. That durability ensures that sapphire jewelry will be treasured for generations.