5 Things to know when buying a sapphire .

Sapphires come in every color in the rainbow. So there are limitless color options that you can choose from. So let’s see whats the rarest and expensive colors in sapphire.

Normally most expensive sapphires are Padparadscha and Blue sapphires. But you can see many color options in padparadscha and blue sapphire.

Blue sapphire color can come in different shades please see the below image.

Cornflower and royal blue are the most expensive colors in blue sapphires. In the other hand sky blue and dark blues are the least expensive colors.

Cornflower blue sapphire carat can be more than $50000 per carat depending on the other quality factories of the stone.

Dark blue sapphire can find $10-50 per ct. But large stones are a bit expensive keep that in your mind.

Sapphire carat weight is one of the critical factors when we decide the value of a sapphire gemstone. You can find 1-1.5 ct blue sapphire gemstone under $1000-$1500 per ct . Below 1 carat sapphires no such a good value in the market. You can find a quality sapphire gemstone under 1 carat for under $500 .

But when increase the carat size price is going up dramatically. More than 3 cart quality sapphire stones are quite difficult to find in the market so that kind of stones holds a huge value than 1-1.5 carat stones.

Normally 10 carat quality blue sapphire stone can go over 1 million dollars.

Most sapphires heated to get good color and clarity. For heat treatment, there is no involvement of chemicals. And it’s totally acceptable in the field.

But some unethical people do X-ray treatment to white sapphires and light yellow sapphires. From X-ray, it increases the color of sapphire stone. Mainly Xray treatment do to Yellow sapphires and padparadscha sapphires. So you must careful when you buy yellow sapphires and padparadscha sapphires. This is totally unacceptable method and you must avoid this kind of sapphires and people who sell this kind of stones.

It’s easy to find Xray treated stones, Only you want to do is keep the stone under sunlight between  10-12.30 in the morning. If stones are treated with  X-ray , the stone color will fade. Normally most genuine dealers keep stones under sunlight before purchasing the stones. So if your dealer is reliable and trustworthy don’t be afraid.

Also, people do beryllium treatment to stones. So you want to get a gem identification certificate from a reliable gem lab. They are not issued Certificates for beryllium-treated stones.

Few relaible gem labs in Sri lnaka

GGTL

CGJ

GIC

Gem and jewelry authority lab

Most of the time sapphires divide according to their clarity like the following.

1 Loop clean

2 Clean

3 Eye Clean

4 Bluff

If you want a buy a beautiful stone you want to avoid bluff sapphires from your list.

There is very hard to find loop clean stone mostly we can see bubbles feathers rutiles inside the stone and they are totally natural. If a stone has visible cracks you want to avoid them.

Last but not least make sure to certify your stone with a third party gem lab