Yellow stones are often found in sizes over 5 carats, and you can find unheated material, although its rare. You may find pink, yellow, green, violet, and rare pink-orange sapphires called Padparadscha. The new heat treatment introduced new Ceylon sapphires to the market, as stockpiles of once unsellable material became very easy to sell.Īlthough Sri Lanka is most famous for blue sapphire, mined in the southern end of the country, around Ratnapura (City of Gems), southeast of Colombo, there is a huge variety of sapphires mined in the country.
In the 1970’s, labs in Thailand found a way to turn those stones into an attractive blue. This was pale and cloudy stones, colored by an excess of titanium. In fact, there was so much material that lower-quality stones were ignored. The sapphires from Ceylon are valued for their vivid color, which tends to be lighter and brighter than the dark blue sapphires from Thailand and Australia.Ĭonsidering the size of Sri Lanka, a country smaller than Austria, the quantity of sapphire mined in the country is fascinating. However, gemstones from Sri Lanka continue to be important in the market.
In today’s market, Ceylon sapphires are facing strong competition from stones found in Madagascar.
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