If you are looking for an engagement ring or wedding ring, there are all sorts of possible ideas you may have in mind. Gemstone jewellery is never just about diamonds and even if you do have one in your ring, this may be accompanied by other gems.
A common example of this arrangement is a trilogy ring, which combines a diamond with two other stones to create a multicoloured effect. The most common options are a ruby and a sapphire.
The reason for this is simple: a ring that gets worn every day needs to be as hard-wearing as possible and of the four gems classed as precious, emeralds stand out as more prone to being chipped, as they are comparatively soft.
Gemstone hardness is measured on the Mohs Scale. When it comes to precious stones, diamonds are a 10, as the hardest substance of all, whereas emeralds are only 7.5-8, which, because it is not a linear scale, is less than 75% of the hardness.
Rubies and sapphires are both 9, the second hardest (apart from synthetic moissanites) and the reason their score is identical is that they are varieties of corundum. Rubies are red corundums and all other colours are sapphires.
What Is Special About The Purple Sapphire Found In Sri Lanka?
The kind of sapphire people are mostly familiar with is the blue version, which most of them are. However, that leaves all the other corundums of various colours, which are often classed as ‘fancy sapphires’.
Few sapphires could be more ‘fancy’ in any sense of the word than the extraordinary specimen recently unearthed in Sri Lanka, believed to be the largest purple sapphire ever found and worth at least US$300 million (£217 million), possibly as much as $400 million.
Weighing an extraordinary 3,563 carats, it has been named ‘Star of Pure Land’ and no purple star sapphire that big has ever been found before, according to gem expert Ashan Amarasinghe, who noted that it also has some other unique features.
The gem “shows a well-defined asterism. It has six rays asterism. That’s something special out of all the other stones," he said.
Now polished and rounded, it was found in 2023 near the town of Ratnapura, which is known as the City of Gems, but has only just been publicised and the team working on it has remained anonymous.
Purple sapphires are generally rare, let alone one of such astounding size, but the discovery of the stone is a reminder of the variety of different sapphire colours that are out there. Could a fancy sapphire be just the thing for your ring?
What Other Varieties Of Fancy Sapphire Are There?
In addition to purple and the familiar blue, other sapphire colours include:
·    Yellow
·    Pink
·    Green
·    Orange
·    Padparadscha (a very rare orange-pink shade)
·    Two-tone, such as yellow and blue
There are instances of some well-known people having these in engagement and wedding rings. For example, in the British royal family, Princess Eugenie wore a Padparadscha engagement ring after accepting Jack Brooksbank’s proposal in 2018.
Of course, this particular type of diamond is exceptional in its rarity and appearance, albeit not quite as much as the giant purple stone found near Ratnapura, but with so many others to choose from, it is well worth considering whether you want to stick to a normal sapphire.
Among the alternatives to blue could be to have a fancy sapphire as the main stone, perhaps surrounded by smaller diamonds in the style of Princess Eugenie’s ring.
Alternatively, you could even go for a trilogy ring with different coloured sapphires, or even one with a ruby, a blue sapphire and a fancy sapphire.
What Is Most Important About Your Ring?
The key to deciding is to consider the key issues about what you and your fiancé or spouse are looking for in such a ring.
·    You will need it to be tough and a corundum will meet this criterion, as any fancy sapphire will still be a 9 on the Mohs scale
·    You should choose something not just because it is novel, but because you truly like the colour or (if there are multiple stones) the combination of colours
·    Do not forget that we love to work with you on bespoke rings, so we can help craft something very particular to meet your desires
·    Consider how this may fit with your preferred style of jewellery and whether you want it to match up with others, or stand out as one-of-a-kind.
We may not be able to supply you with a 3,563-carat purple sapphire, but we can certainly enable you to wear a bespoke ring with something rather different to the kind of sapphires your friends might be wearing.