Enclosed
S OMEWHAT jokingly, we were going to name this 225 carat rough sapphire the “The Lion Of Judah” because I initially thought it was perhaps the first noteworthy golfball sized sapphire-crystal of deep-blue lusciousness to originate from the new Ethiopian Aksum sapphire-fields. My eyes nearly popped-out of my head when I first saw it. However, reality bites. And bites hard.…
You may be forgiven for thinking Africa’s only ‘Sperrgebiet’, a restricted access wilderness of gemstone-bearing lands, is solely Namibia’s claim to frame. It turns out however, in the remote Ethiopian Highlands, at a height of almost 8,000 feet, a large sapphire-field has been found in a remote, culturally-timeless area that is carefully administered by the authorities. This new find, made…
A fantastic, intense red and blue color piece of hard-to-classify corundum. More than just a bi-color sapphire, this vivaciously colored jewel seems to be both ruby and sapphire. Rejecting traditional corundum-identities we have self-identified this as a “rupphire” (joke lol) Weighing 1.69 Carats, this is Vietnamese, and is heated.
This sapphire fail is now a solid aggregated mass of sapphire that has bonded together unusually strongly. The crucible of sapphire was left in the oven longer than planned during the New Year celebrations, and is a casualty of the raucous alcohol-fueled celebrations that have happened here this weekend. This lot belonged to a heater who has an office a…
WHAT LIES BENEATH – A thick, black iron-oxide crust covers an 11 Gram / 55 Carat blue sapphire. Resistant to scratching with restaurant tableware, this tough and ugly lamina almost completely conceals the sapphire’s real potential and high-value derived from it’s cornflower-blue color.
and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks —Isaiah 2:3–4 A generation ago these Tigray farmers-cum-sapphire miners were the fighters who prosecuted a war against the ruling regime and won, overturning the despots who largely created the 1980’s famine. With victory won, the fighters returned to their land, swapped their weapons for ploughshares and…
I n late 2016, a sapphire deposit was found in Madagascar that yielded the most beautiful, soft yet intense-blue colors found for years. So attractive was this material, that the SSEF even produced a Trade Alert warning that some dealers and labs were passing this fabulous new material off as Kashmir-origin sapphire. A few months later, and far to the…
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An unusual and huge 166 carat tricolor rough sapphire with apple green, royal blue, and black sections. It will have to have the black sections cut and ground out to make two sapphires. What is very unusual is that the rich blue and vivid green are in the same orientation direction. Most unusual.