Advice on an oval blue sapphire for an engagement ring?!

[Rach2828]

First of all, this forum is incredible. I would have been completely lost without all of you in my sapphire search!! I have been looking for a medium blue oval sapphire between 6x8 and 7x9 which will be going in an oval halo engagement ring. I worked with a number of local jewelers but was unimpressed with what we were seeing both in terms of quality and price. I have now been looking online to see if we could find the perfect stone for us. I would greatly value your opinions on this stone:

http://www.ajsgem.com/sapphire/blue-sapphire/blue-sapphire-2.22-carats.html-1

The plan is to have it set in this setting:

http://www.ritani.com/engagement-rings/halo-french-set-diamond-band-engagement-ring-in-platinum/6161

There is a picture and video. I'm interested to hear your opinions on the color, shape, whether there's too much extinction, and anything else you'd like to share! This has been an exhausting process already but I am confident that eventually we will find exactly what we are looking for! Thanks so much in advance for your help!

 

[FrekeChild]

Good grief that video is awful. I don't want to stare at the pavilion and culet of a stone for 2 minutes - I want to see what it looks like face up! From what I can tell from the video, it looks like it has a bit of "bowtie" extinction. And I think I'm seeing some color mishmash in the still picture... The color looks nice in the video, but I feel like in hand it may not be the same as what we see on the video.

What is the price on it? And what's your budget? And what are you looking for as far as color?

 

[Rach2828]

The price for that stone was just under 3000. We would spend 5 thousand or a little more if we found something great, but I don't want anything much larger than that one. The ones we saw in the store around that size were 5-8 thousand and were really disappointing.

As far as color, I know I don't want something too dark, but am open minded to color generally. Maybe medium royal blue or a little lighter?

 

[chrono]

Colouration is nice but it's up to you if you can handle the bowtie. That is the very dark, almost black band running across the sapphire from north to south. This is apparent in the still picture as a slightly darker band, giving it the appearance of zoning or some mishmash of colouration. The one sole experience I noticed for a poster who was interested in a different blue sapphire from AJS is that the stone is slightly darker in person than in the video. I do not know if it will be the same for this sapphire.

 

[pregcurious]

Where is the link to the video?

 

[Rach2828]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Si0NxvH2w

That should work. It was on the AJS gem website but it disappeared, sorry!

 

[vickygigi]

Love the setting! Very pretty. I hope you find a sapphire you LOVE to go with it.

 

[pregcurious]

Thanks, for the video link. I agree with the previous posters that the bow-tie is very obvious. I am okay with extinction that moves around in a medium-dark stone, but that is too much for me.

 

[LD]

The video has been flooded with light which makes the gemstone appear quite vibrant and blue. I suspect (strongly) that in person, you won't see that. It will be darker and as Chrono has noted, it has quite a big bowtie (some people don't mind it, others can't tolerate it).

I've bought numerous gemstones from AJS and with every experience I would say that their photos are glamorised. I always assume that gems will be darker so search for photos that are lighter than I would normally want. To give you a comparison, the photo below is the AJS photo of a Mahenge Spinel I bought and underneath it my photo of what it really looks like. It's actually a nice stone but certainly NOT as vivid as AJS made it look.

On the plus side, it's good to see that they've started doing videos but I wish they'd get the lighting right.

 

[Rach2828]

I'm having a hard time finding much else online. We have been looking for months. I have talked to pretty much everyone on the lost of reputable vendors with little luck. There is one from Gemfix:

http://www.gemfix.com/sapphire_blue.html

It is 6th from the bottom in the left column, 2.26 carat blue oval. I know it's pretty much impossible to tell what it's going to look like from just one picture, but any thoughts? Does the shape look a little lopsided? I can't tell if its a problem with the cut or just a bad picture. Thanks again for all of your help!

 

[chrono]

Symmetry doesn't look off to me in the hand shot but the colouration is unlikely to be as vibrant as shown.

 

[Wednesday]

I visited Gemfix in September and they had a few gorgeous ovals and rectangle cushions in that size and in your price range. I don't know if they still have them, but it may be worth a look.

 

[minousbijoux]

After watching the video, I thought with the exception of the bowtie (although I'm realizing bowties don't bother me as much as some others here) that the color - tone and saturation - of that stone was superb, although I wondered about the lighting. Cutting was okay, nothing to write home about. Then I read LD's comments about the lighting and their stones in reality. Now I think I would be disappointed if I bought that stone.