William and Kate and Diana's Ring

[Sithathoriunet]

Another from 1919...

 

[Sithathoriunet]

This one is late 19th century,

 

[Sithathoriunet]

This beautiful ring is 1890...

 

[Sithathoriunet]

1900's was as close a date as this one showed...

 

[Sithathoriunet]

19th century.

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Edwardian

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Victorian,

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Also Victorian...

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Victorian..

 

[Sithathoriunet]

One more Victorian,

 

[afreebird]

Yellow sapphire and diamond ring...YUM! I like the detail of this one!

This ring really speaks to me. What a ball of sunshine! I am enjoying this thread immensely. Thank you for all the pics and info!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Diana's ring has such a traditional style behind it's design. I love it. Next I would like to have a look at another traditional type of engagement ring, just because I found it while looking at traditional sapphire Diana style rings, this one I love as it is a crown ring, sapphire as well!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Yellow sapphire and diamond ring...YUM! I like the detail of this one!

This ring really speaks to me. What a ball of sunshine! I am enjoying this thread immensely. Thank you for all the pics and info!

Im so glad! It is so much fun to explore all of this with everyone!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

An obvious thing to look at, now that Diana's ring is on Kate's finger, there are many replicas being made...here are a few...claiming to be Diana's style...you can be the judge! winx

 

[Sithathoriunet]

another

 

[Sithathoriunet]

And a few more!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Of Course, the original on our beautiful eternal Diana! The ring as it appeared originally, before it was reset.

 

[Sithathoriunet]

And in it's current setting!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

A Diana style ring being made..very interesting!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Here's something funny! While looking for pictures on line here of Diana style rings...I came across a listing of my own ring! On Google!!! LOL this one is brighter then the one i already put up, but it is a nice sapphire, so here we go! lol...

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Kate and Wills, and Diana's ring on Diana..

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Here is a nice variation of the design..

 

[Sithathoriunet]

another sapphire e ring, nice, classic...perhaps Penelope also loves Diana?

 

[Sithathoriunet]

This Diana style ring just popped up! Yellow sapphire version!

 

[Pandora II]

I'm afraid would disagree - IIRC a famous gemmologist once said that the finest Kashmir sapphire he’d ever seen was from Madagascar.

Top colour is top colour regardless of origin – Dick Hughes himself says that with fine stones origin should be a non issue – however if you were to have sapphires of identical colour, clarity, cut, size etc but of different origins then the Kashmir will cost considerably more (at least twice as much)than the Mogok which will itself cost more (at least 50%) than the Ceylon which again costs more than the Madagascan.

To illustrate this further... a number of years ago a Sri Lankan mine was producing sapphires that reputable labs were happily stating as Kashmir in origin (despite the fact that nothing truly fine has come out of Kashmir since the 1930’s).

I have a number of Sri Lankan sapphires that I bought on my last trip to Ratnapura, where I also saw some fabulous stones in private collections and the colours commanding the high prices were those as close to the colour of the Kashmir stone I posted pics of. Dark blue stones were much, much cheaper than any other shade. I hate to use the term 'cornflower blue' just as I dislike 'pigeon-blood red' for rubies, but it was definitely the cornflower-royal blue stones that were the ones that were brought out from the papers with almost an air of respect. Having seen large sized stones - easily the same size of the sapphire in Kate Middleton's ring - and seen the colour that these were in daylight and artificial light, is why I don't consider her sapphire to be of 'top' colour. I don't doubt that it is much nicer in person than in many photos and I would be amazed if Garrard's were to touch a bad quality sapphire, but I still don't think it is that fine a stone.

Songea sapphires and Australian sapphires do tend towards the green and I would think that there it would be possible to have a ‘finest’ colour amongst those stones showing the characteristics of the region, but those that don’t would be judged against blue sapphires as a whole. Those with would also not be equivalent to ‘finest’ amongst sapphires from Kashmir, Ceylon or Madagascar and they won’t begin to command the same kind of prices.

Also, just wanted to give you a heads up regarding ‘silk’ inclusions. They are not evidence of lack of heat treatment – rutile doesn’t begin to melt until 1400 degrees centigrade whereas sapphires are commonly heat-treated at 1100 degrees to improve colour. I was talking to the head of AGL two weeks ago about exactly this and he said it was a common mistake and one still taught by many gemmology courses.

I would also very wary of any corundum that was loupe clean – eye clean certainly, but I’d start suspecting synthetic if I didn’t see some kind of inclusions in there. They after all are one of the better clues to geographical origin unless you want to start using destructive tests.

I’d try and respond to some of your other posts, but my internet connection is playing up hugely at the moment (Grrrr, am about to kill my ISP as this has been going on for over a week now) and my 18 month old daughter is not spending-time-on-internet friendly, so it may take a while!

Always good to see gemmologists on the boards - you should come over to CS some time! Where did you qualify?

Harriet! Long time no see, although I hear that you have some amazing new Loliondo's and a little bird tells me that you might have been acquiring green... if so I demand pics! Anything else new in that amazing collection of yours?
Here are a few stones, each of which would be regarded as extremely fine – anyone want to guess their origins:

This chapter from Richard W. Wise's 'Secrets of the Gem Trade' is extremely interesting on the subject of sapphire, locality and colour... http://www.secretsofthegemtrade.com/images/overview_chapter22.pdf

 

[Pandora II]

Stone A:

 

[Pandora II]

Stone B:

 

[Pandora II]

Stone C:

 

[Pandora II]

Stone D:
Answers revealed this evening!

 

[chrono]

Top colour is top colour, it doesn’t really matter where it the sapphire comes from although there is probably going to be a premium for the origin, in addition to the super fine colour. I have also seen some horrible looking Ceylon and Kashmir sapphire so origin isn’t the be all and end all. I, too, dislike the romanticized terms like “cornflower” blue and prefer to use the GIA terminology to describe gem colour of hue, tone and saturation strength. Some may not be aware of this but on rare occasions, Songea and Australia have produced some very nice looking blue sapphires and these have been advertised (and sold) as Indian sapphires in order to get a higher asking price. It is also possible for a sapphire to be heated and still show rutile needles if it hasn’t been heated high enough.