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.
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…
