Color change question.

[stepcutgirl]

I hope this isn''t a dumb question! I am looking at getting a color change sapphire and it shows pictures as well as says cornflower blue by day, violet pink by night, great in mixed light. Now, i understand a stone isn''t aware of day and night, so I figure this means blue in sunlight, violet with out sunlight. Is this correct? Also, what does indoor lighting count as? Thanks for any help you can give!

 

[LD]

Typically you''ll see one colour with natural light i.e. daylight and it sounds like the description you''ve been given is blue.

In artificial lighting - so at night with the lights on, it will change to violet.

When it''s dusk or early morning, you may have a combination of the two lighting sources and that''s when you may see a mixture of blue and violet.

Hope that helps. Do you have any photos to post up? I love colour change gemstones.

 

[stepcutgirl]

No pictures yet. But you may have helped me to rule it out. I want to see the blue more and I''m almost always inside. Thank you.

 

[Largosmom]

I believe that the violet/purple colors show in fluorescent light, blue in daylight or incandescent light. There are some photos in my thread "beautiful blue or color changing" of the stone I''m purchasing from Jeff White and a link to another blue/purple color changing stone.

There are some other sapphires that color shift or color change but I''m not sure of the combinations.

I think they are so cool and can''t wait to get mine!

Good luck with your search...

Laura

 

[LD]

Date: 11/21/2009 6:04:09 PM
Author: Largosmom
I believe that the violet/purple colors show in fluorescent light, blue in daylight or incandescent light. There are some photos in my thread ''beautiful blue or color changing'' of the stone I''m purchasing from Jeff White and a link to another blue/purple color changing stone.

There are some other sapphires that color shift or color change but I''m not sure of the combinations.

I think they are so cool and can''t wait to get mine!

Good luck with your search...

Laura

It''s highly unusual that a colour change sapphire will be the same colour in daylight AND incandescent lighting.

All the cc sapphires I''ve seen are one colour in natural lighting and another in incandescent lighting. The only time that the daylight colour can be replicated in the evening is with a daylight bulb.

Hope that helps.

 

[Largosmom]

Thanks, I''m still a newbie.

 

[LD]

No worries! It''s a fun learning curve to be on!!!!

 

[morecarats]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about different types of lighting.

There are many types of artificial lights, but many fluorescent bulbs attempt to emulate daylight, with a Kelvin temperature in the 5500-6500 range.

Most incandescent bulbs are in the range of 3000-3200 Kelvin and emphasize the yellow end of the spectrum.

So color change gems are usually evaluated under daylight (or fluorescent lighting emulating daylight) and normal incandescent lighting. (There are special incandescent lights that try to emulate daylight and many gem dealers use these to photgraph their gems).

Daylight itself is variable. The color composition of sunlight tends to be more yellowish in the morning, then moving into the blue range, then towards red in the late afternoon. The rule of thumb in the gem trade is to buy evaluate gemstones under north daylight at noon, since the light is supposed to be white balanced between red and blue.