What Consitutes the Expense of a Sapphire?
When people think of sapphires they think the color ought to be blue. This isn't always true. Sapphires come in every color and can run from colorless, and from colors covering from light pastel pink, green, and yellow to a midnight blue in addition to all shades in between. Colorless sapphires are known to be called white sapphires. Some sapphires can have a color change or called color shift. This means that any stones could appear a teal outdoors and shift to a red pink indoors. Many people in the trade call color shift "party colors". The strong medium colors in sapphires are more valued. I'm not a big fan of dark stones. A dark stone has a challenging time in presenting its brilliance. The medium saturated colors are the most precious and historically most important valuable gemstones. Red sapphires are called rubies. Sapphires are valued for their strong radiance (ability to reflect light like a mirror), and hardness. These collectible treasures are the next hardest stones after diamonds. Sapphires are excellent for most any type of jewelry applications. This means they can be used in rings and bracelets for centuries with a slightest chance of being scratched. Clarity is the other most valuable factor in determining the value of a sapphire. Most of the natural sapphires on the market today have some inclusions viewable only under magnification or worse. A completely flawless stone would make a fine jeweler question if it's real or manmade. Quality sapphires are rare and the larger stones, are high-priced for the same color, clarity, and cut. The typical found sapphires in rough before being cut is around six carats and majority of those are smaller sizes. Anything over six carats, in my opinion, is being considered large. A six carat rough stone would finish around 1 to 2 carats give or take depending on the size of the rough and the design used. Of course, the shape of rough and a closely matched design would yield closer to a forty percent yield. Nearly all sapphires available in jewelry industry are badly cut. Perfectly cut sapphires are more often than not available in the finest jewelry stores and their value reflects a premium. We suggest that you learn how to tell the difference between a poorly cut ("windowed" and/or "fish eyed") and a premium cut before obtaining your sapphire. If the stone you're looking to buy sounds too good to be true, then it's probably a fake. Synthetic and imitation sapphires are often synthesized and imitated by other substances. In addition, almost all natural sapphires undergo some kind of heat treatment process. The heat treatment process is used to help with color and clarity. The most valuable sapphire has an intense and beautiful medium color (cornflower blue and padparascha are the most valued colors), a perfect cut (very difficult to find in sapphire), a large size (over 3 carats), and excellent clarity (sapphires are rarely perfectly clear). For instance, an one carat finished round brilliant premium faceted (cut) medium cornflower blue sapphire VVS (eye clean) can range upwards to and over three hundred a carat. In my opinion such a stone under magnification should show internal flaws but appear eye clean. Prices will jump dramatically per carat for sapphire stones that are over one carat.
About the Author
Preferred Gemstones has been cutting gemstones since 2006 and has been a fan of unique design in brilliantly faceted Loose Gemstones. This article is the opinion of the writer only.