SAPPHIRE BEADS PLAIN OVAL 4MM TO 7MM GRADUATED

PRODUCT CODE: SH100114


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Sapphire Plain Oval Beads, Graduated From 4mm To 6mm, These Sapphire Beads On a 18 Inch Long Strand. Approximately 162 carats Net Weight. Price Per Strand.

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Mix and Match Prices	1-9	10-19	20-49	50+

As low as $129.00 Per Strand	$156.44	$142.22	$135.45	$129.00

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Sapphire bead , like ruby, is one of the gem varieties of the mineral corundum, a chemically crystallized alumina. Corundum is the second hardest natural mineral; only diamond is harder. Blue sapphire is the best-known form, and much of the traditional sapphire lore is based on the blue stones. But there are also “fancy” sapphires—canary yellow, gold, green, brown, pink and the extremely rare padparadscha, which is pinkish-orange. Except for the padparadscha, blue sapphires are traditionally considered the most valuable.
The word sapphire seems to have several sources: the Greek sappheiros, meaning blue, the Arabic safir, the Chaldean sampir, and the Latin sapphires. It’s now thought that all of these names were based on the stone’s Sanskrit name, sauriratna or sanipriaya, meaning “dear to the planet Saturn.” In classical times and up through the Middle Ages, the term sapphir was often applied to a very different dark blue stone, lapis lazuli. For example, both Pliny the Elder and Theophrastus describe sappheiros as a gem with gold spots, which indicates that they were describing the pyrite in lapis. The Thai word for sapphire is actually applied to all precious stones. It wasn’t until the eighteenth century that
sapphire and ruby were recognized as varieties of the same mineral. At that time only blue sapphire was called sapphire, and the others were given confusing names, such as Oriental Topaz for golden sapphire.
One of the fascinating things about blue sapphire is the mechanism that results in its color. According to gemologist Richard W. Hughes, trace amounts of titanium and iron are responsible for the sapphire’s blue, but it’s not enough that they simply occur in the stone. The titanium by itself produces no color, and the iron yields only a pale yellow tint. But when light enters the transparent crystal, a single electron hops from the iron ion to the titanium ion, producing the rich blue. So when you look at a blue sapphire, what you’re actually seeing is the movement of an electron energized by light.
Since they are both crystallized alumina, rubies and sapphire often occur in the same places. There’s actually a gem found in the mountains of Myanmar (Burma) that has a core of blue sapphire surrounded by red ruby. Sri Lanka and Myanmar remain the sources of the world’s finest sapphires, though from 1882-1925 the most sought-after blue sapphires, a shade called cornflower blue, were found in Kashmir, a source that has mostly been exhausted. The only sapphire found in the United States is a metallic-blue that occurs in Montana. Treating corundum with heat to enrich its color is a practice that goes back at least 2,000 years, and continues. Today most rubies and sapphires are treated to enrich or stabilize their color.
Geologically, there is no single recipe for the formation of sapphires. It varies according to location. For example, in Kashmir, sapphires formed in pegmatite that was rich in aluminum and boron, with the necessary iron and titanium coming from adjacent rock. In Australia, Cambodia, and Thailand sapphire formation began with a reaction by aluminum-rich multicarbonates that were deep in the earth’s crust. High temperatures and pressure resulted in these multicarbonates being forced to the earth’s surface in volcanic eruptions. Millennia later, this volcanic rock eroded, and sapphires were found in sedimentary deposits in the valleys. In Sri Lanka, blue and fancy-colored

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SAPPHIRE BEADS PLAIN OVAL 4MM TO 7MM GRADUATED