How we describe stones

The four things stated on every stone

Whatever else a listing says, these four are always present, and are what a buyer at this end of the market is actually paying for.

1. Treatment. Which of the categories below applies — including “not yet determined” where the stone has not been tested. There is no such thing as a listing here with no treatment field; the site will not build without one.
2. Weight and measurements. Carats to two decimals, and length × width × depth in millimetres. Depth is included because it governs how a stone will set, and its omission is how a shallow stone gets sold on face-up size alone.
3. Origin, and the basis for it. Marked either “stated on report” or “our assessment”. Never presented as a fact when it is an opinion.
4. Certification. The laboratory, the report number and what the report says — or a plain statement that there is no report.

Heat, and how we stand behind it

Heat in sapphire cannot be identified reliably without laboratory instruments. That makes “unheated” the most valuable word in the trade and the hardest to prove, so it is worth being exact about what we are telling you.

We buy at source — rough out of the ground, and cut stones from the cutters who cut them. When a stone is listed as unheated, that is first-hand knowledge of a specific stone with a known history, not a guess and not a repeated assurance from three sellers back. Every such listing carries a “how we know” line setting out where the stone came from and why we can say it.

What we deliberately do not do is lean on certificates issued in the producing countries. They are not consistently reliable, and a report from a laboratory the trade doesn’t trust proves nothing while looking as though it proves everything. Where you want the question settled independently, we send the stone to one of the international laboratories at a stated price before it ships — see certification. That offer stands on every stone we sell.

The same applies to the trade colour names. Padparadscha, royal blue, cornflower and pigeon’s blood are not neutral descriptions — different laboratories apply them to different stones, and the same stone is routinely called padparadscha by one and fancy sapphire by another. Where we use one of those names it is either attributed to the laboratory that made the call, or plainly flagged as our own description.

The treatment categories

These are the categories used on every listing. Heat, in particular, is not a defect — it is the near-universal, permanent and entirely accepted practice in sapphire, and the great majority of good stones on the market are heated. What matters is that it is said.

No treatment

No heat and no other treatment of any kind. Bought at source, so the heat status is known rather than assumed.

Heated

Conventional heating with no foreign residue. Heat is a permanent, stable and near-universal practice in sapphire — the great majority of stones on the market are heated.

Heated, with residue

Heated with flux or glass residue visible in surface-reaching fissures. Stable in normal wear, but it is a separate and lesser category to conventional heat and is priced accordingly.

Diffusion treated

Colour introduced into the surface layer or lattice by diffusion. Permanent, but a materially different category to heat alone and priced well below it.

Fissure filled

Surface-reaching fissures filled with glass, resin or oil to improve apparent clarity. Requires care in cleaning and repair, and is priced well below untreated or heated material.

Irradiated

Colour produced or improved by irradiation. Standard and stable practice in some material — blue topaz and certain zircon — and disclosed here as a matter of course.

Coated

A surface coating or backing contributes to the appearance. Not permanent under wear.

Treatment not yet determined

We have not established the treatment status of this stone and make no claim either way. It is priced as untested material, not as untreated material. An independent report can be commissioned before it ships.

Photography

Stones are photographed in diffuse daylight-balanced light against a neutral grey card, with no colour grading, no saturation adjustment and no relighting. Inclusions visible to the eye are photographed rather than shot around.

Colour-change stones — alexandrite, colour-change garnet and colour-change sapphire — are photographed under both daylight and incandescent light, because a colour-change stone shown in only one light is telling you half the story. Cat’s eyes are filmed under a single point source, since a broad eye can look sharp under soft light and collapse under a bulb.

None of that makes a screen accurate. Every monitor is calibrated differently and a stone genuinely changes with the light it is under, which is why there is an inspection period on every purchase — see inspection and returns.

Rough

Rough is sold as-is. No yield is estimated and no finished colour is promised, because what a piece cuts depends on how it is oriented, and that is the cutter’s judgement rather than ours. Parcels are sold whole — individual pieces are not split out.

Synthetics

We do not deal in synthetic, lab-grown or composite material. If that ever changes it will be stated in the species field of the listing itself, not in a footnote.

Getting it wrong

If a stone is ever not as described here, that is a major failure and you are entitled to choose a refund — that is your right under Australian Consumer Law and nothing on this site limits it. Send it back and we will refund the stone and the postage both ways.