The Mysterious Blue

For gemstones, the conversation starts with colour. Within the realm of sapphires, the most well-known shade is blue. But sapphires are dichroic, so they often display a secondary hue depending on their viewing angle and the light. That secondary hue can be purple, green, teal, or grey. The preferred colour combination is blue with a small percentage of purple. The saturation and tone of the blue combined with the amount of purple determine whether a blue sapphire will be considered a ‘royal blue’ or a more open shade known as ‘cornflower blue’ because of the colour’s similarity to a cornflower. Other than these two coveted sapphire labels, you’ll find a myriad of blue shades in sapphires.

All other aspects (clarity, crystal quality…) being equal, the closest you are to the primary blue shade, the higher will be a sapphire’s value. That’s a simple concept to grasp, but the conversation gets layered when we incorporate the elements of tone and saturation into the mix. Picture light moving through the ocean. Displaying a lighter blue in shallow waters, with rich and velvety shades with increased depth. Tone and saturation shift a sapphire’s blue in a similar fashion. The rarity of finding a sapphire that checks all the boxes is what drives the higher valuation. This doesn’t mean that other shades of sapphires have less worth. Each one is a rare gift of nature formed under extremely rare geological circumstances.

To better understand the complexity of colour in blue sapphires, let’s take a step back from the academic terminology and divide them into three personality types: the serious, the balanced, and the lively. The lapidary artisans at KV Gems aim to extract the best personality out of each blue sapphire depending on its original rough form. How is this achieved? By walking a tightrope of colour, tone, and saturation.

Colour alone does not define the ultimate value of a blue sapphire. For example, a deep blue sapphire with a darker tone that is heavily included and has a dull appearance will be categorised lower in value than a sapphire that is well cut and polished, eye-clean, even though it may be 4 shades lighter.

Coloured gems are creatures of light, and the varying shades of the sun impact the absorption of colour bands, which results in the final shade the human eye grasps. And since colour is an intrinsic element in a gemstone, it should ideally hold its colour even in dim lighting conditions. To achieve this, the lapidary must employ its skills to either cut away inclusions or apply techniques to improve a gem’s clarity, which would allow light to pass unhindered. But simply removing the inclusions alone is not enough. The quality of the lapidary’s cutting and polishing skills impacts the crystal quality of the sapphire or the lustre of the gem and how its personality shines when it interacts with light.

Let’s go back to our blue sapphire personality types. The serious blue sapphires have it all: deep colour, clarity with a crystal personality that commands attention as if someone of royal descent has walked into a room. Balanced blue sapphires are a great combination of colour that displays a primary blue with no dark or grey tones. The lively ones may have less colour, but because of their clarity they sparkle more than a deep blue and hold their hue better in low light conditions.

Origin (Kashmir, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, Nigeria) can sometimes add another dimension to a blue sapphire’s beauty. For example, blue sapphires from Kashmir display a velvety texture due to the nature of their inclusions compared to similar gems from Sri Lanka or Myanmar. Sapphires from Australia tend to have more green in them as a secondary hue. But these are generalisations assume the comparison is being made between blue sapphires of the same quality across origins. And that is almost impossible to achieve because, like humans, no two gemstones are alike in all aspects.

So, what have we learnt? The closer you get to a primary blue hue, the higher the value of the sapphire. But colour alone is not enough to determine value; crystal quality, a result of inclusions (or the lack thereof) and the cutting and polishing skills of the lapidary add value to a rough sapphire by bringing out its optimum beauty. What is the best buy? Within the budget you may have, always buy the best. It’s better to acquire a lively sapphire of a lighter shade but top-notch clarity and crystal that appears to be happy, than a dull, heavily saturated blue sapphire with a dark tone and poor clarity and crystal that appears to not have must of a personality.