All About Sapphires

All About Sapphires

The name sapphire may derive from the Greek Sanskrit sanipriya, meaning "dear to the planet Saturn". Sapphire appears in a rainbow range of breathtaking hues. Due to its hardness, 9 on the moh scale just below diamond, its brilliance and variety, some gem enthusiasts consider the sapphire to be the most important and most versatile of all the gem stones.

One of the most expensive and sought after sapphires would be the padparadscha sapphire. Padparadscha means lotus blossom in the Malaysian language, and is the color of these beautiful peach-orangey-pink stones. Many of the most desirable sapphires come from Kashmir, India.

While sapphire and ruby are both corundum, they are distinguished by color. The red corundum are classified as ruby. All other corundum is considered sapphire and whilst sapphire may come in a variety of colors, it is most known for the 'cornflower blue' color in particular. Those sapphires other than blue are very often referred to as fancy sapphires.

Sapphires are found in Africa, Australia, Brazil, Burma, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. The rough crystals arrive at the cutters, who then studies the stone and works to cut the sapphire in the best possible way to bring out its brilliance and sparkle. The oldest Sapphire mines are situated in Sri Lanka. Gemstones have been mined there since the early days. An expert can recognise a Sri Lankan sapphire by the luminosity and brilliance of light to medium blue colour. But most blue Sapphires, actually originate from Thailand and Australia.

Many experts can tell, in fact, the origin of a sapphire by the depth of color and other factors.