"Cornflower Blue

[Patty]

Oops, I hit the "enter" key instead of the """ key!

My question is...Is "cornflower blue" a real color designation of some sapphires or is it just slang? I've heard of sapphires from Ceylon being called "cornflower blue."

The sapphires in my new ring are from Madagascar and I think they are gorgeous. When I was planning the ring, a friend asked me if I was getting "cornflower blue" sapphires. I said, "I don't know, they are just a pretty blue."

Is Cornflower blue a real color...like according to people who grade sapphires?

 

[winyan]

Patty

I've always heard the term 'cornflower blue', but I think it's just a usage term to describe a shade of blue...the preferred shade, I believe. I know it's a lovely shade, much prettier than the inky almost black shade, that's so prevalent now.

win

 

[AGBF]

"Cornflower blue" is to blue what "Pigeon's blood red" is to red

No one knows what either of them really looks like.

Deb

 

[Michael_E]

Here you go, cornflowers, aka. batchelor buttons. I think that this picture's color is just about right on, at least on my monitor. I couldn't find a pidgeon that was willing to give up anything for a picture of what a fine ruby color looks like.

Michael E.

 

[valeria101]

AGBF's note is dead on ! Birds, flowers and fish do not make great gem grading tools...


Somewhere in the Ruby & Sapphire book, there is a story mentioned about two respectable gemologists doing just that to a pigeon: a spectrographic chart of it's arterial blood. I bet this is true

Cornflowers have escaped this treatment, up until now.

But you know what? There were far more cornflowers than sapphires where I grew up, and I would not reject any sapphire which could hide itself well in ANY of those violetish-blue flowers of medium-light tone and vivid saturation...

BTW: the ones in the pictures are a garden hybrid, the wild Indo-European mainstream stuff has one row of petals only.

I think I did mention these flowers on another thread pressing for a definition of what "true blue" is, so would rather write the explanation than let the botanical reference spoil this respectable forum.

 

[AGBF]

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On 2/10/2004 10:26:43 AM valeria101 wrote:



BTW: the ones in the pictures are a garden hybrid, the wild Indo-European mainstream stuff has one row of petals only.

Can we have a picture of the wild Indo-European cornflowers with one row of petals? This has become extremely interesting! And where *did* you grow up, AnA? Was it in Romania?

Deb

 

[AGBF]

This is supposedly a picture of a wild cornflower. Any comments, AnA?

 

[mogok]

Hello,
Well for rubies and sapphire there are several old terms from the trade that are more or less known and used. Most of these terms were useful as they were refering to some comparaison objects that could be used several hundred kilometers away when there was no photography... The problem is that the comparaison object are not anymore available now: Color of the third drop from the nose of a freshly killed pigeon (it means blood from veins and not arterial one, I guess) And as AnA said there are several hundred of cornflower types. These flowers become rare now due to modern agriculture...
These old terms are still very present in books so some people try to use them as selling tools.

To my knowledge (after 4 years in Burma dealing with such burmese beauties) this is what I can tell you about them:
"pigeon Blood" is the term that was used in Burma to describe the color of some rubies... The real burmese term is "Kho Twe" This is the term used now for stone that are slightly purplish red. So red with a little bit of blue...
"rabbit blood" or "yone Twe" is the term for slightly orangy red. Which is now the color that in more in fashion now as a drop of yellow add some luminosity to the stone.
There are many other terms for rubies in Burma used to describe the saturation of the stone from pink to dark red: "Kha Ye", "Kha Ye Thet", "Bomaniaw", "Bomaniaw Ye", "La Gou", "La Thi", "La Di".... "Bomaniaw" vient ethymologiquement de "Bombay Tchike" which means: "Loved in Bombay" as this was the color seached by the colonial british to sell in the western market and in India. Burmese traditionaly prefer the darker tones as they used to weir their stone by sunny days under Mandalay or Yangon sun which is very strong... Under London, New York or Paris sky these "La Di" stones looks too dark.

For sapphire the "cornflower" blue was the term used to describe a pure blue sapphire and "Royal Blue" the term to describe the blue stones with a drop of violet. "Cornflower" was the typical color of fine Kashmir stones and some Ceylan, but this color can also been found in Mogok, Burma. "Royal Blue" on the other hand is a color more typical Burmese. Anyway for Burmese the fine color is "Kadiba" wich just means "medium tone high saturation fine blue sapphire"... In Burma the classification system for sapphire is not as sophisticated as for rubies and for denturies the comon knowledge was that blue sapphire were just... unmature rubies! Sapphire were at this time just put back in the ground. But nowadays Burma is the main source of fine unheated top quality stones even if the supply is very scarce.

On the photo I join to this post you can see a pair of "native cut" unheated "royal blue" sapphires.

 

[Patty]

Thank you for your replies and thanks Michael and mogok for the pictures.

The sapphires in my ring are from Madagascar. I'd call them royal blue over cornflower blue, but no matter what they are, I think they look great so that's all that matters.

 

[mogok]

Hello,
Yes Patty you are absolutly right: Whatever the name given to the color of your stone, the only really important thing is that your stones and more especially their color please you.
The rest is romance and pride.

 

[valeria101]

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On 2/10/2004 11:09:26 AM AGBF wrote:



This is supposedly a picture of a wild cornflower. Any comments, AnA?

----------------

Nope! that is some Sp. of it...

The "cornflower blue" below shows the typical blue fluorescence of the plant... I'd wish sapphires had it too

I wanted to avoid too much Botanic on this thread, but AGBF wins! Looking for a picture online (since it did not occur to me to take a photo of such agricultural pest) I found out that the flower is endangered in Western Europe and the US - so many would only know the "washed out" garden varieties. I suspect the picture below may provide some idea why exactly the best sapphires were called "cornflower blue" BEFORE agriculture started using herbicides

In this backward country of mine (and eastwards) there were enough cornflowers left, I guess. By now Richard Wise is right to say that cornflowers are not blue enough and the name just a myth - today's garden cornflower are no longer the SAME plant! Strange story this...

 

[AGBF]

AnA,

That is a lovely flower! Is that the flower you remember from your country?

Deb, glad she won

 

[valeria101]

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On 2/11/2004 1:53:50 PM AGBF wrote:



Is that the flower you remember from your country?

----------------

Yeah.

 

[Sagebrush]

AnA,

Now thats a Cornflower! Where did you get that shot. It really looks like a Kashmir sapphire wishes it could look. I like Moguk's explanation it tallies with what I have observed.

 

[AGBF]

I thought that the discussion of "cornflower blue" looked familiar in the new thread (below). It reminded me of this thread! Ana, of course, nailed it!

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/whence-this-cornflower-blue.23706/


Deb

 

[Patty]

I forgot that I had posted this last year. The thread this year got me interested again in the color of sapphires.

When I chose mine, I had two sets I was choosing between...by photos only.

Here is the set I chose. They total 1.52 carats and they measure approx. 5.4 mms across each.

I''m still not sure if I chose the right set. The sapphire provider described this set as "presenting richer," so I went with his opinion.

 

[Patty]

This is the set that I turned down.

They total 1.35 carats and measure approx. 4.5 mms each.

At first I was tempted by the lighter color of these, but I liked the bigger size of the previous set and then the "richer" comment sold me. I still wonder, though, if I should have gone with these since I really like a lighter blue.

Did I make a mistake? Should I have chosen these ones?

 

[Colored Gemstone Nut]

Date: 1/17/2005 12:46:29 PM
Author: Patty
This is the set that I turned down.

They total 1.35 carats and measure approx. 4.5 mms each.

At first I was tempted by the lighter color of these, but I liked the bigger size of the previous set and then the 'richer' comment sold me. I still wonder, though, if I should have gone with these since I really like a lighter blue.

Did I make a mistake? Should I have chosen these ones?

Hey Patty:

Well the truth is depending on how much of a hurry you were in you could have called in both sets to take a look at and then decide. Richard Hughes (I assume these are shots from Palagems?) ships directly to a jeweler or broker so you can take a look and decide after you see the stones. Stones this small are also very hard to judge by the photos and descriptions and color bias can be completely an individual thing. One thing for sure based on the descriptions of the gems, Palagems will not steer you wrong in providing you with quality merchandise. Something to keep in mind for next time.

 

[Patty]

Thanks Josh. Barry at SuperbCert got the sapphires from his source. I don''t know if he uses Palagems or not. I did not try to see them ahead of time. I''m in the Midwest and Barry is in NYC. I just told Barry to get the best quality that he could. I''ve been happy with my choice but I recently found these photos again and I wonder if I made the right choice. I wouldn''t call it buyer''s remorse, but I still think, "Hmmmm."

 

[Colored Gemstone Nut]

You did fine, the stones look beautiful...

 

[Patty]

I always forget about this forum. Thank you Josh! I took a few more pics of my rings today and I like how the color showed up on this one: