Corundum var. Sapphire

Unknown Owner

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Superb and substantial, doubly-terminated, hexagonal, prismatic Sapphire crystal from Sri Lanka. This classic, NATURAL (unheated) Sapphire crystal exhibits its characteristic steely-blue color. This 24g Sapphire crystal is an amazing two and one-quarter inches long and five-eighths of an inch at its widest. Although specimens of this size tend to show rounding of the edges from rolling around in the gem gravels of their host rivers in Sri Lanka, this specimen is very sharp and it has well-defined crystal faces and edges. It's gemmy through much of its length with translucent areas and displays a sublime medium blue color to most of the body, graduating to whitish at the terminations. 24 grams is large for such material. it could easily be cobbed into pieces, and the gem regions heat-treated to enhance color, and sold as gem rough. Thus, we rarely see such large sapphire crystals of this extraordinary quality for sale at any time on the market. This piece is old, from the 1980s or 1990s, and comes from the major private gemstone collection of Mike Scott. We have had and sold larger crystals, but not with the combination of gemminess and luster present here.