One of my favorite colored gemstones to design with is the sapphire. Typically blue in color, it is September’s birthstone and the traditional gemstone for 5th and 45th wedding anniversaries. Sapphires are one of the gemstones I work with the most, and for a couple of good reasons! On the Moh’s scale of hardness, the sapphire ranks a 9, so it is very durable and strong…perfect for everyday wear. The only stone that ranks higher is a diamond! Sapphires often contain delicate intersecting needles of rutile that gemologists call silk. The Gem nerd in me LOVES natural inclusions! And lastly, sapphires come in a variety of colors. Most only think of the traditional, saturated, deep blue color. But there are so many different natural colors that a sapphire can have.
Besides blue sapphire and ruby, the corundum family also includes so-called “fancy sapphires.” They come in violet, green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, and intermediate hues. Some stones exhibit the phenomenon known as color change, most often going from blue in daylight or fluorescent lighting, to purple under incandescent light. Sapphires can even be gray, black, or brown.
Today I’d like to highlight a personal favorite: the redesign transformation that I recently worked on. My client stumbled upon a past ring redesign that I shared on my Instagram account. It must have jogged her memory a bit, because it reminded her of a sapphire ring that she had with similarly shaped stones! She sent me her rings and we worked together to come up with a gorgeous new setting for her sapphires. Below are photos of: her old rings, the CAD of her new ring, the wax model of the new ring, and the final masterpiece.
If you've got a 5th, 45th, or September birthday celebration coming up, I'd love to chat with you about creating a beautiful custom sapphire piece with you! Click here to contact me today!
