Hi all
So as promised in my last post about buying cheapish stoned in Colombia I have a quick question for you which would really help me out.
My wife has asked if I can get hold of some blue sapphire studs as a present. But I really want to do it on a tight budget. Personally I would probably look at the synthetic options. But having mentioned this my wife doesn't like the idea and wants them to be natural. Treatments, however, are fair game as long as the stone is mined rather than made in a machine.
What I gather from this forums FAQ is that the price for treated stones is much more competitive than untreated and therefore I'm hoping this is a good way to get the price down (to $200 or so ideally).
In terms of treatments my only real concern is beauty (ie. it still needs to look like a 'natural' sapphire rather than a lump of glass) and permanence. So I think that heat, diffusion, irradiation etc would be ok. But coatings and non-permanent enhancement would be no good. Also I'm not too keen on doublets or other 'trickery'.
I am looking for 2 reasonably matching round cut 6mm stones. The cut i'd like to be pretty good but it doesn't have to be spectacular given the pricing. For color I think I would err on the side of lightish medium cornflour blue to maximise brightness. I'm not a big fan of darker colors as I think they might struggle to 'pop'. Equally it has to be dark blue enough to be clearly a sapphire if you know what I mean.
Basically, in a nutshell, I think I'd like a nicer looking treated stone than a less good looking untreated stone at the same price.
Any thoughts on this from the experts? Do you know where is a reliable place to buy nicely cut but heavily treated stones? Many of the online stores pride themselves on only selling untreated/lightly treated stones so I'm not sure which way to go.
Thanks very much
Paul
So as promised in my last post about buying cheapish stoned in Colombia I have a quick question for you which would really help me out.
My wife has asked if I can get hold of some blue sapphire studs as a present. But I really want to do it on a tight budget. Personally I would probably look at the synthetic options. But having mentioned this my wife doesn't like the idea and wants them to be natural. Treatments, however, are fair game as long as the stone is mined rather than made in a machine.
What I gather from this forums FAQ is that the price for treated stones is much more competitive than untreated and therefore I'm hoping this is a good way to get the price down (to $200 or so ideally).
In terms of treatments my only real concern is beauty (ie. it still needs to look like a 'natural' sapphire rather than a lump of glass) and permanence. So I think that heat, diffusion, irradiation etc would be ok. But coatings and non-permanent enhancement would be no good. Also I'm not too keen on doublets or other 'trickery'.
I am looking for 2 reasonably matching round cut 6mm stones. The cut i'd like to be pretty good but it doesn't have to be spectacular given the pricing. For color I think I would err on the side of lightish medium cornflour blue to maximise brightness. I'm not a big fan of darker colors as I think they might struggle to 'pop'. Equally it has to be dark blue enough to be clearly a sapphire if you know what I mean.
Basically, in a nutshell, I think I'd like a nicer looking treated stone than a less good looking untreated stone at the same price.
Any thoughts on this from the experts? Do you know where is a reliable place to buy nicely cut but heavily treated stones? Many of the online stores pride themselves on only selling untreated/lightly treated stones so I'm not sure which way to go.
Thanks very much
Paul