As you can buy sapphire jewelry, especially sapphire engagement rings of all kinds, on this page, we see it as our mission to explain the most common quality criteria. We want you to know exactly what you’re buying.
Sapphire jewelry is probably one of the most beautiful type of jewelry you can buy. And that’s what makes sapphire engagement rings the perfect gift for your spouse. But sapphires come in numerous variations, so it’s necessary to know a bit of the most common quality criteria to not get tricked.
So, what criteria do you need to know when you’re buying sapphire jewelry? Obviously your engagement ring will be very important for your future, so you’ll want to make sure that the ring you buy is of the highest quality.
Sapphire Color
The color of sapphires is probably the most important aspect to ensure the high quality of sapphire jewely. It’s one of the main factors to determine the value of a gemstone, so definitely be careful here.
The sapphire gemstone is commonly known to be a blue gemstone, but it can also be found in champagne, yellow, orange, pink, violet or even black. Yes, the sapphire varies in his color – based upon the chemical elements the sapphire contains.
Most people think that sapphires are “royal blue” or “cornflower blue”. Well, that aren’t good descriptions, as people tend to have different perceptions of those colors. That’s why gemologists came up with more objective ways to measure the color in sapphire jewelry: hue, tone and saturation.
The hue is considered to be the base color of the gemstone. Most often, the color of a sapphire is a combination of different hues. So could a blue sapphire also contain variations of purple hues, which affect the color slightly.
The tone is how light or dark a gemstone appears. It highly influences the value, as too light or too dark gemstone are valued lower than others. You might have seen sapphires that look “inky”. Make sure that the tone isn’t so light that the color appears pale, nor should it be so dark that you can’t identify the color.
Saturation is the third component in determining the color of sapphire jewelry. It describes how clear, intense or powerful the color of the gemstone is. Cold colored sapphires (blue, green, violet) usually have grey as a saturation modifier. The saturation of warm colored gemstones (yellow, red, orange) is often modified by brown.
You can use those three factors to determine the color of a sapphire. The most value usually is assigned to sapphire jewelry with a strong blue color, without any modifiers and with a nice hue.
Clarity and Inclusions
Clarity is another very important factor that influences the value of sapphire jewelry and sapphire gemstones.
Generally speaking are sapphires with no inclusions (= high clarity) way more valuable than sapphires with some inclusions. This is mainly because blue sapphire gemstones typically have inclusions and thus gemstones without inclusions become pretty rare.
Sapphires can contain several types of inclusions. As GIA is stating, among those inclusions can be found long thin mineral inclusions called needles. Other inclusions can be mineral crystals, partially healed breaks, color zoning and color branding.
In normal cases, inclusions reduce the value of sapphire jewelry. Especially when those threaten the stone’s durability, the price can drop.
But there are a few special cases, where the formation and type of inclusions can actually raise the worth of a sapphire. For example, the Kashmir sapphire has his velvet look only because of the inclusions. They disperse the incident light and thus cause the beautiful visual effect without decreasing the gem’s transparency.
Another example for inclusions that make gems more valuable are star sapphires. They belong to the corundum category, the star effect is called asterism. Very tiny inclusions, that are oriented in a specific direction cause light reflections which leed to the star appearance. Common stars are made up with 4 or 6 rays, rarely found (and thus highly valued) are stars with 12 rays.
Hematite inclusions can cause the star appearance (asterism) in a black sapphire. Originally those sapphire’s color is yellow green, or blue – but the inclusions influence the color to make it look dark brown or even black.
The most valuable star is placed in the center of the top of the stone, has distinct rays and is visible not only from near but from a suitable distance. The amount of inclusions is barely enough to create a well-defined star. If the inclusions are too much, it’ll lead to bad color and decreased transparency, which will reasonably lower the value.
Different kind of Cut
You can find sapphire jewelry and loose gemstones in many different shapes and cuts. The most common are ovals and cushions, forms like rounds, heart or emerald cut are also seen. When buying sapphire jewelry, the stone is often set in a metal stamp, so that it isn’t visible in total.
The shape of the gemstone is obviously influenced by the shape of the raw stone. Those raw stones are most often in a barrel- or spindle-shaped hexagonal pyramid, which leads to the fact that finished sapphires are often deep. And that’s the reason why a personalized cut is critical to find the optimal form for each stone.
The perfect cut for a stone used in sapphire jewelry displays the color of the stone in the best way and still enhances luster and brilliance. Good quality sapphires are symmetric when viewed in profile and they reflect the light evenly.
A thing to consider is the depth of the stone. The deeper it is, the more it preserves the weight and thus it increases in price. But you won’t see the increase in the crown (top portion of the stone) that you’d expect. Deep stones will have a stronger color than lighter stones.
Diamond carat Weight
Carat is the unit to measure gems in. But since gems have different densities, a diamond and a sapphire with the same carat will vary in their sizes. Sapphires are usually occuring in larger sizes than rubies. To clarify, you can find untreated sapphires on Sri Lanka with sizes above 100 carat, whereas untreated rubies above 5 carats are classified as world-class pieces.
