sources for sapphires??????????

[windowshopper]

just curious where others have looked for really good sapphires. In my opinion --cherry picked has very high prices. any one else people have purchased from online or b & m.

 

[sevens one]

Check them out:

gemstone link

 

[chrono]

Wink of Winfield's

and

Gary of Dutton's

I've gone through both for my sapphire needs. Both are reputable and trustworthy. You pay for what you get. I wanted really top notch sapphires and had to be very explicit in what I wanted and Wink came through for me. I would also buy from Gary in a heartbeat.

 

[MJO]

Hello,

It depends on what you want. If it''s unheated top notch collectors stones you want, they are very rare and cost much more. If it''s for jewelery you can pay much less for what looks very nice.

CherryPicked.com is my choice for unheated collectors'' stones and Wink at Winfields has very nice concave cut stones done by Richard Homer. I had Wink have a 7ct round unheated Burma Sapphire for me concave cut by Richard Homer. I think it came out incredibly. Arnold at AJS Gems also is very nice and moderately priced. I even had my local jeweler buy a couple of rubies from him.

Sincerely,
MJO

 

[cflutist]

MJO, could you post a picture of your sapphire? Would love to see it.

 

[bar01]

I agree with MJO.

I bought from Cherrypicked for my gals E-ring. Are they expensive? Yes. Are they overpriced? No - not in my opinion. They sell rare, fine and untreated sapphires and other precious colored gems. I did a similar search with a high end competitor like www.walterarnstein.com and found them to be very competitive. Also looked at the very best unheated selections from www.awesomegems.com (a PS listed vendor by the way) and they were in the same ballpark of prices as cherry and Walter.
Richard and wink are a great team. But for Richard – you pay an extra price for the wonderful beauty his cutting creations bring to life. Like a work of art really.

I did intially contact wink and was helpful. He knows colored stones well. If you don't have the time (or want to spend the effort) to do a lot of searching, education, and comparison shopping - just give Wink your budget and size sapphire you want and he will take good care of you.

There are other sources of very good heated stones. Even Walterarnstein carries a few treated as does www.awesomegems.com and www.simplysapphires.com.

If I was looking for another fine untreated piece I would start with Cherry but I would still browse through all sources mentioned here and comparison shop.

Honestly, I have been wanting to try a sapphire from www.simplysapphires.com (in their "our best" section) because they get in a few AGTA certified sapphires from time to time that look very nice and seem at very good prices .

You need to have an idea (ballpark) of what different levels quality vs price vs ct size. I think Richard Hughes gives us something to consider in his his book from 1995. Click on the link below.

Price vs Quality

 

[MJO]

Hello cflutist,

I took some pictures but couldn''t upload them. They are over 100,000K and the website won''t accept them. I''m not a very good photographer or that good at web uploads. I''ll have to ask my son to do it tomorrow. It''s funny I used to teach him but I got lost in technology and have to rely on kids.

 

[MJO]

Hello cflutist,

My son helped me get these pictures on. It was a 7ct round unheated burma sapphire I had cut into a 5.20 concave cut by Richard Homer. I had it bezel set in a Platinum pendent with small diamonds

 

[strmrdr]

awesome!

 

[cflutist]

MJO, Your sapphire is absolutely stunning

It is one of the most beautiful that I have seen.
Just can''t get over how beautiful that stone is ....Bet you sure get a lot of compliments on it.
I want one

 

[sevens one]

OMG- MJO, that sapphire is just beautiful.

 

[MJO]

Hi cflutiist,

I had it made for my wife. I''m a colored stone nut and love jewelery. She hardly wears anything but the really cheap stuff I buy her. She always wears the synthetic alexandrite earings I bought here but hardly ever wears the pair of paraibas I had made for her or any of the other good jewelery.

 

[WinkHPD]

Thanks to so many of you for all the kind words. It is always greatly appreciated.

I also appreciated the kind words about my "competitors" especially the ones about you get what you pay for. Fine gems are rare, so so gems are plentiful and easy. It is refreshing to see people on the "price is the king" net sharing their knowledge that certain vendors don''t play the game of overgrading so so gems and selling them "cheapest price" on the net.

Their prices may seem high at first, until you actually see them side by side with some of the so called gems offered by some of the "cheapest prices on the net" firms and realize that calling a rutabaga a tomato does not make it sweet and juicy. These boards are rich with comments about some of the drek received from the cheap places, and also with praise about the gems received from some of the firms mentioned above. It is good never to confuse value with price.

A friend of mine in the real estate business has a phrase that he likes to use a lot, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!". I think that the internet is full of firms that prey on those who get just enough education to think that they know a lot about various things. More and more though are the firms that treat with those who have learned enough to separate the hype from the fact.

A large number of those firms are members of this board and it warms my heart to see so many of them recognized in this thread.

Wink

 

[strmrdr]

Wink while I can agree with what your saying I want to make a comment.
The lower priced gemstones can be just as beautiful as the expensive ones.
I have bought some gemstones from Gary @ diamondexpert.com for $20-$40 that are absolutely gorgeous.
No they aren't what is considered the top color for the material and are often the more common shades but they are very nice in their own right.
Some are lesser known/desireable material.
For example one of the best looking pins Iv ever seen is the fire opal I got from Gary and had mounted.
I love the orange red that would have cost 1000x as much in other materials.

I see people get so caught up in the red spinels that they think thats all there is while they miss the other awesome colors available.
I saw a light blue spinel the other day that at a distance was drop dead gorgeous and if it hadn't been cut too shallow would have been a total awesome stone.
I then searched the net for that color and it is fairly widely available and in better cut pieces at a low price.

Iv seen the same thing happen with sapphires.

Also zircon gets rather ignored but some of the ones iv seen have been some of the best looking gemstones around in my opinion.
But hey its kewl that they get ignored that means they are cheaper for me to buy.

Anyway the real key is buy what is beautiful to you and do the homework to get it at a fair price.
Or everyone continue to ignore the other stuff and leave the prices on them low for me

 

[strmrdr]

her pin

The pin in question.

 

[MJO]

Hello strmrdr,

You are correct that some stones are not well known or are not what "others" would concider the right color and therefore much cheaper. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Thank God or my wife would have never married me . Buy what you think is beautiful. I have seen some Oregon Sunstone that is the best stoplight red with an incredable flash but no one knows about it. It is very rare so I''m glad because if it were well known I wouldn''t own any. Also there has been a new discovery of Oregon Opal that is as good as the best Mexican Orange opal but again it hasn''t been promoted. I if you are a collector you go for the rarest, best color (concidered by the majority) that you can afford. If not buy what YOU think is beautiful, natural or synthetic. The color and clarity of synthetics are ussually much better than natural, but if it''s natural beauty you want it comes with a price.

 

[WinkHPD]

Date: 11/7/2004 12:14

1 PM
Author: strmrdr
Wink while I can agree with what your saying I want to make a comment.
The lower priced gemstones can be just as beautiful as the expensive ones.

Anyway the real key is buy what is beautiful to you and do the homework to get it at a fair price.
Or everyone continue to ignore the other stuff and leave the prices on them low for me

You are correct, and it was not my intention to denegrate the inexpensive stones, just those who described them as expensive stones and sold them to the unwary.

An inexpensive stone that is described acurately and sold for what it is has a very valid place in the market and should be sold with intgegrity, just as the more expensive stones. A pale blue heavily included Burmese sapphire is an inexpensive stone, and it should not be described as a "valuable rare high quality Burmese stone that we can sell to you for only $500 per carat because we travel to the mines and get our shoes dirty and no one else in the world is smart enough to do this".

We on this board laugh that anyone would fall for this phony hype, but there is ample evidence that many do.

Wink