Sapphire for engagement ring - budget questions

[arw_pig]

Hello everyone! First post here. I have been lurking around and reading threads for a while, there's so much great information here, I am so thankful already!

My SO and I are planning a sapphire engagement ring, but we're both new to gemstones (and fine jewelry in general), so we have a few questions. Mainly, we don't know what our money can get us, or what we should expect to spend.

We are looking for round cut sapphires around 6mm in diameter. We want it to be a well-cut, high quality stone. We prefer the idea of untreated stones, though we're open to heating if our budget requires it. As for coloring, we tend to prefer stones that have lighter hues, especially pale blues, steely blues, and pale blue-greens. Because of our color preferences, we've been looking at Montana sapphires. We'd prefer to cap our budget for the stone at around $800.

Is it realistic to hope to spend under $800? There are some lovely stones at Gemfix that seem to be right over our budget (about $900-$1000). But then we've also seen sapphires elsewhere for much less. For example, blazengems.com has this one for $300: http://blazengems.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=53_54&products_id=1110

What accounts for the price difference between the two? Is it mostly the quality of the cutting? Is there some middle ground between these prices? And does anyone have experience with blazengems? I've only found a few reviews on here, and while we love the prices, we're worried about getting a lower quality stone.

Any advice our guidance would be much appreciated! We just want to get our bearings before we start reaching out to some of the recommended vendors we've identified from this site.

 

[T L]

Hello everyone! First post here. I have been lurking around and reading threads for a while, there's so much great information here, I am so thankful already!

My SO and I are planning a sapphire engagement ring, but we're both new to gemstones (and fine jewelry in general), so we have a few questions. Mainly, we don't know what our money can get us, or what we should expect to spend.

We are looking for round cut sapphires around 6mm in diameter. We want it to be a well-cut, high quality stone. We prefer the idea of untreated stones, though we're open to heating if our budget requires it. As for coloring, we tend to prefer stones that have lighter hues, especially pale blues, steely blues, and pale blue-greens. Because of our color preferences, we've been looking at Montana sapphires. We'd prefer to cap our budget for the stone at around $800.

Is it realistic to hope to spend under $800? There are some lovely stones at Gemfix that seem to be right over our budget (about $900-$1000). But then we've also seen sapphires elsewhere for much less. For example, blazengems.com has this one for $300: http://blazengems.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=53_54&products_id=1110

What accounts for the price difference between the two? Is it mostly the quality of the cutting? Is there some middle ground between these prices? And does anyone have experience with blazengems? I've only found a few reviews on here, and while we love the prices, we're worried about getting a lower quality stone.

Any advice our guidance would be much appreciated! We just want to get our bearings before we start reaching out to some of the recommended vendors we've identified from this site.

There are a million threads on here about sapphires and various educational information is in them.

I will just quickly say that like any gemstone, the price differentials between two gems is based on many variables including

treatment and how invasive the treatment is
clarity
color
cut
carat weight

If you have two stones the excact same color, clarity, carat weight, cut, etc. . . and one is treated and the other isn't, the price can vary an incredible amount, by thousands and thousands of dollars. If any one of those variables is different in two single gems, it can cause price differentials, and dealers also charge whatever they want, not necessarily true market prices. They may have overhead, rent, their employees, advertising, designer label, etc. . . so the market price isn't always that written in stone.

You can get a sapphire for less than $800, but you have to figure out what the trade off will be. Will you want a tiny stone, one with poor saturation, invasive treatment? One thing I can assure of is that you will not get a top color stone with no treatment for under $800.

 

[JewelFreak]

A major difference in saturation accounts for a good deal of the price variance between the Blazengems stone & similar-size Gemfix Montanas. The sapphire there has very low saturation, though it seems to be a nice hue if you like light blues. It's so low in saturation that he calls it "ice white/blue." The color is not even throughout the stone, too, which lowers its cost. Hard to tell from the photo, but it may not be precision cut, while the Gemfix Montanas are; that would also affect price. I'm guessing it will show less blue in hand than it does in the photos.

It depends on what you like, in the end. If very very pale blue makes you happy, that's your stone. However, since this is a ring you will presumably wear the rest of your life, if you could squeeze a few hundred more into the budget, I think you might find one of Gemfix's stones more satisfying -- or you might look at more of the vendors on our Preferred Vendors list at the top of this forum. Limiting size & shape decrease your options & under any circumstances, finding the right sapphire can take time, as you've seen if you've read posts on the subject here. Good luck & congratulations on your happy future.