Where to buy sapphire?

[Egon]

How do all? Quick question. Looking to re-build a ring for my soon to be fiance.
She has her grandmother''s engagement band, and we would like to have it cleaned, re-shanked and put a small blue sapphire as the center stone. Stone size would be ~.25 ct,
so not large at all. The jeweler who will do the work could find a stone for me, but I like to do my own shopping!

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks!

Egon

 

[Colored Gemstone Nut]

----------------
On 5/9/2003 6:53:15 PM Egon wrote:

How do all? Quick question. Looking to re-build a ring for my soon to be fiance.
She has her grandmother's engagement band, and we would like to have it cleaned, re-shanked and put a small blue sapphire as the center stone. Stone size would be ~.25 ct,
so not large at all. The jeweler who will do the work could find a stone for me, but I like to do my own shopping!

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks!

Egon----------------

Hi Egon-

FIrst I think it's important to establish what kind of color you are looking for in a sapphire. What region a sapphire rough is sourced from to be cut also carries a premium on the price. There are different shades and intensities of blues on the market. Robin & Todd from NICEICE point a good example in this thread below.

where to buy loose sapphires?

Pictured are 2 stones both with intense color both from the region of Madagascar. As you can see outlined in the post one stone is more of a royal blue than the other darker stone. It is also important when searching for a stone of high quality that the color throughout the stone is distributed evenely. Not to have an intense color in one area of the stone and where the same stone might exhibit fading in another area. I personally like to shop and pick out my own stones too, but in the case of certain gemstones as far as the color goes and quality I talked with NICEICE about what I was looking for and based on that imput they picked me out a couple stones which fell in that range. First I decided what region I wanted to get my stone sourced from based on the premium. Burma & Madagascar are near the top of the list for quality. I then decided on what color and instensity I was looking for. I talked with Richard Sherwood and got his input on what color wise I should look for in a high quality stone and was quoted the following.

"medium to medium dark tone of blue with strong saturation and medium to high (high if you can get it) intensity. VS clarity (clean to the eye) with no color zoning visible to the eye faceup. In a small size like that a good cut is always a plus, for brightness."

Based on this information on whatever you decide your priorities should be, you can have a particular vendor ship you a couple stones and you can pick out which one you like best.......

The stones I ended up going with were sourced from the Madagascar region and ran me $775.00 a carat for 2 x .20 ct. stones. I was told for fine stones the prices can range from $700-$1400 based on quality.

-Hope his helps you a little and have fun searching.....

-Josh Rioux
Sitka, ALaska

 

[Colored Gemstone Nut]

Hi Again Egon-I just wanted to attach a picture of some different color saturations of blue in blue sapphires attached also with a link to the palagems website which is run by Richard Hughes who has written a guide on colored gemstones...Enjoy the reading...

-Josh Rioux
Sitka, ALaska

Here's That Link: www.palagems.com/quality_4cs.htm

 

[Egon]

Thanks for the information Josh! Very helpful. Of course it means I'm off on
another stone hunt! Ah if only I had remained ignorant, this would be so much easier, albeit nowhere near as much fun!

 

[nghtshd]

Hello Egon!

Here is a website that sells natural Blue Sapphire in a very rich, medium blue: www.jeweltrek.com

A 3.75mm (.25ct) round diamond cut runs $77.50. A diamond cut gem will give you more brilliance and will fit better into your existing mounting!

Rebecca

 

[valeria101]

hei!

A small good one could come from awesomegems.com or steveperrygems. The last site has some awesome orange right now... And for the best choice of smalls go to ajsgems. Another tip: africagems has a small (less than 1ct, don't remember how much) pad of extremely intense color and two pricess cuts (yeah, pads, princess cuts, right) to go with it. Ask anyone: those are once in a blue moon encounters, wether you are in or outside the business. Maybe a small, perfectly cut stone will do? then customcutgems might make your day.

Hope this helps!