Columbia Gem House's Sapphires
Everyone loves sapphires, and who can blame them? They’re the second toughest gemstone on the Mohs’ scale, come in many different shapes, sizes and colors. Sapphires are so beautiful that even the rough holds a gorgeous color, making it easy to cut and polish them straight without any enhancement. They’re practically perfect! And our excuse for showing off this wonderful gem? September just happens the month for sapphires. Perfect timing! Here’s some information on sapphires Columbia Gem House carries!
But first, a little information about sapphire enhancement:
As mentioned, sapphires can be cut straight from the ground, but they can be enhanced to improve the color’s clarity. There are many other things you could do, but Columbia Gem House only –if any enhancement is made— does that. We never add foreign elements like beryllium or titanium and do not and will never add borax or glass to fill small fractures. Here, we consider enhancements like that to be completely unacceptable and dishonest to our customers.
With that out of the way, first up are our Australian sapphires! Australia has a wide range of locations that mine sapphires, and our Royal Kings Plain Sapphires® come from New South Wales’ plain. These are rare royal and navy-blue sapphires that have been found within an ancient river bed in the state. Queensland also has their own fancy sapphires, which come in yellow, green, orange, and bi-colors. Take this Bi-color Sapphire, which is 5 carats and 11x8 mm with two gorgeous green colors. Those are mined in the appropriately named Emerald and Sapphire towns. What’s amazing is how deep these sapphires are: Miners must go 1-3 feet all the way to 30 feet beneath the surface just to find gem bearing gravel. Luckily, once an area of the river bed is mined it gets transformed into lush green pastures. Isn’t that neat?
Next is our wonderful Malawi sapphires. We’ve received our Malawi sapphires from Chimwadzulu since 2001 and have been cutting and selling them since. Their denim sapphires are something to behold! Other colors include yellow, pale blue, and deep blue. We also have natural untreated sapphires that come in pinks, padparadsha, orange, and chroma colors. Even more special is the ocassional white sapphire that we receive from the mine. Columbia Gem House also has taken step to insure villages near Chimwadzulu are supported, with the Dzone District Development fund. You can learn more about Columbia Gem House’s fair trade and labor efforts here.
What’s talking about sapphires without mentioning Ceylon sapphires? Ceylon sapphires are from current day Sri Lanka. While known for their yellow, pink, and blue sapphires, Ceylon sapphires come in a multitude of other colors, and we carry white Ceylon sapphire baguettes, which are absolutely stunning in bright white shine. Against a black surface, you’d think they were stars in the sky!
Heading to North America, we have our Montana sapphires. Montana sapphires are quite bountiful, however commonly small in size. However, while they aren’t going to be exquisitely large stones (those are incredibly rare!), they make up size with their utter beauty. Montana sapphires colors are amazing: While they come in blue, teal, yellow, orange, grey, and much more. They also come as color shifting gems! That means that in different light, they can give off a different color than before. Best are our kaleidoscope™ round gemstones, named for having multiple colors mixed within the stone in unique and mesmerizing ways. Here’s a batch of Montana Kaleidoscopes that will blow you away, and an extremely rare pink padparadscha. Montana sapphires come in natural and enhanced colors depending on the individual gems.
Finally, we have our gorgeous Yogo Sapphires. Yogo sapphires are from Montana’s Yogo gulch in Judith Basin County. But don’t confuse them with our Montana sapphires! Yogo sapphires are North America’s best and rarest sapphires, thus being the most expensive of any other Montana sapphires. They range from a nice cornflower blue to a deep purple (although the purple is extremely rare). They’re also known for being extremely small: Yogo Sapphires that are even just a half carat are incredibly rare, and a full carat is mostly dreamt of. What makes up for these are their lack of inclusions, as well as their extreme uniform clarity. No matter what lighting you’re in, they stay as brilliant as ever, and are considered by many as the world’s best sapphires. You can find this in some of our Yogo sapphires: Take this Yogo sapphire ring, a gorgeous jewelry piece made inhouse and is great for a modern engagement ring.
What are your favorite sapphires? What to see more? Send us an email or check out our Instagram! We hope you find the perfect gem for you or your friend’s sapphire jewelry project.
