question on blue sapphire color terminology

[crosado]

Hi,
While looking for a loose shapphire on ebay for a valentine''s gift for my wife I found a few stones that I like.. What
I am confused about is the terminology used on ebay postings to describe the color of the stones.. I saw a feedback
complain about a buyer who purchased a "royal blue" but he said he received a midnight blue..

Now the stone I am interested is described as "top rich blue" this is from the same ebay vendor.. I looked thru
the pictures of both auctions.. the one described "royal blue" and the current auction described as "top rich blue"
and in the current auction pictures the stone looks "darker" color.

Here is the URL for the current auction/stone
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=4962966468&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT

Here is the URL of the auction where the buyer complained
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4644&item=4954451059

now what is the deal?

I do not want to bid/buy that stone and then receiving a way too dark stone..

I want to set this in as simple as possible white gold setting pendant..

any help/advice is really appreciated.. BTW I was trying to email Wink about this request and his email returned
saying "no such user here"

Someone got his correct email?

thanks
Carlos

 

[Kaleigh]

I''m not a colored stone expert by any means, but I love sapphires and the second one from ebay looks pretty nice. Hopefully the experts here will chime in and offer better advice. Good luck!

 

[valeria101]

There are no standard names for sapphire color, those are just fashionable tradenames.

It is hard to tell exactly what is what from a picture, but I would be amazed if these are not really dark

given the origin, looks and price.

 

[widget]

I think I read that Wink is out of the country river rafting, or something...but that doesn''t explain why is email isn''t working...

I wouldn''t trust buying ANY gemstone on ebay unless I knew the dealer... You''d probably be best served if you go through one of the vendors who post here.

Have you checked out: www.ajsgems.com ? I''ve purchased a couple of stones from them and have been very pleased...

widget

 

[crosado]

Widget,
Thanks a lot for the help!

look what I found
http://www.ajsgems.com/SBG/SBG-00020.htm [$$)]

I think I know what I can get with my tax refund this year...

I wish..

 

[valeria101]

Green sapphire is pretty special

nothing else gets the same green. Unual too.

A couple other pieces got my attention lately - not harts, smaller, but nicer color, I think.

A smaller concave cut with pretty special shape (about 6mm):

And a larger one with intoxicating color:

And a couple of alternatives: quite nice, but not quite the same I would dare say.

(these come from Walter Arnstein, on the web at thenaturasapphirecompany.com)

I am surprised AJS found their green hart in Madagascar... the color reminds me strongly of Australian sapphire. The mix of yellow and green zoning that yields the green color face up would be pretty tipical for australian material, I think. Not that it is unheard about elsewhere. It is unsual to find a larger stone that is not too dark - hence the price at AJS. Below 3 carats (like the buddies above), things stay allot more dollar-conservative. Even very fine quality.

Now, if it needs to be hart shaped and available asap, you might want to check Multicolour. There are about 20 hart shaped sapphire listed, and you might find the looks plesantly surprising. Green hart would likely be Tsavorite garnet, not sapphire. A little tanzanite came along the same way...

I liked the cut of these two and the cheerful color.

All the pieces cited go from about $200 to $1000, btw.

Just my 0.2, as usual

 

[Michael_E]

When you are looking at any gem pictures on E-bay you need to keep in mind that the seller will ALWAYS take the best pictures at the best angles and call it the most attractive name that they can come up with. When looking at these pictures I would just assume that the color that you will see, will be the darkest color showing in the picture. If you look at the first item, they have a shot showing the pavilion of the stone. The first two rows of facets from the culet are too shallow and will lead to a window of at least 50% when viewing the stone perpendicular to the table. The seller can back light the stone and the color that you see will be the color through that window, which is usually much lighter than what the stone will actually look like. I occasionally buy these stones to use for recutting, provided that the depth is enough to get a decent sized stone out of the deal. When I do this I always look at the colors close to the perimeter of the stone to get an idea of what the actual color will be. It''s always a gamble though, so make sure that their feedback is high and that you can return the stone easily if it doesn''t suit you.

 

[icekid]

wow, why are the green sapphires on ajsems so inexpensive??? are they really common?

 

[lonewoodminer]

Hi

Colour description is surely one of the sapphire industries biggest hurdles. To buy on ebay must present some dilemmas. I have seen some very creative use of words to entice the buyer with complete mistruths or extremely uniformative descriptions, not to say there arent bargains out there. I''m not sure if the feed back rating always is the best indicator of a great shop. Perhaps the shop has done a good job for a long period of selling for eg synthetic sapphire described as natural or genuine, sure they get good feedback as most of the stuff looks good but the reputation has been built on false information. OK - if the customer is happy then that is all that matters. Please dont get me wrong there must surely be some great bargains but let the buyer beware.

cheers
Andrew Lane

 

[valeria101]

Date: 2/2/2005 9:5:3 PM
Author: icekid
wow, why are the green sapphires on ajsems so inexpensive??? are they really common?

Not at all... but green is not what sapphire is expected to be and nice green is pretty unusual. "Emerald green" sapphire doesn''t exist - as far as Iknow, it''s always a more exotic shade. These are just...unpopular.

I really do not know if green sapphire is just rare in thr ground or never makes the shops due to lack of PR. Otherwise, you can probably find any other color easier than green. Just my impression, of course.

 

[icekid]

hmm, well i personally have a thing for green (b/c that''s what color my eyes are and it really makes my eyes stand out) so i may have to look into picking some different colored sapphires up... they are really pretty!