Month: October 2013
When colourless is boring
***Pls note that the jewellery featured in this particular post is not by Heritage Gems.
Coloured gemstone engagement rings have long been used among royalty and Old Money as a profession of their love for each other.
Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor with a stunning 19.77ct emerald engagement ring. Truly a gem piece:
Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon with her Ruby engagement ring surrounded by diamonds
In more current times, royalty engagement such as Princess Diana’s 18ct stunning blue sapphire ring to which Kate Middleton was subsequently proposed to by Prince William are definitely redefining engagement ring traditions.
Stunning blue sapphire engagement ring – If it’s good enough for Prince William and Kate Middleton, I’m sure it would be good enough for any of us.
Princess Mathilde of Belgium’s beautiful oval ruby engagement ring
Marie-Chantal of Greece’s Cabochon Sapphire engagement ring
Fergie’s Oval Ruby engagement ring
Jacqueline Onassis’s emerald engagement ring
And in even more recent times, amongst Hollywood celebs, coloured gemstones engagement rings have become popular
Halle Berry’s 4ct emerald engagement ring. Beautiful and unique – estimated to be worth USD200,000.
Elizabeth Hurley elegant and classic emerald shape blue sapphire stunner. As mentioned in a previous post, fancy cut side diamonds (regardless of shape) always command a premium than round brilliant side diamonds/setting size diamonds.
Jessica’s ruby engagement ring, again, with fancy cut side diamonds.
Nicole Richie’s Pink Sapphire engagement ring – a colour for the little girls inside every one of us.
Contrary to mainstream opinion, coloured gem engagement rings is only for the privileged few. Fine quality precious gemstones are rare and not easily available. If one has a specific colour/shade/hue in mind, the waitlist to lay your hands on an ideal gem could be several months, sometimes close to a year. If your jeweller is actively searching the market for you, it may take a slightly shorter timeframe.
Nonetheless, buying that ideal precious gem is not something that you can pick off a chart with the corresponding colour grading, clarity grading as you would a diamond.
Dainty Ruby Ring
The daintiest ring just newly crafted with a pretty little ruby sitting atop. This ring is most fitting of its owner, a young lady with a good eye for colour. She knows a good gem when she sees one. Not wanting something too ostentatious, suitable for daily and semi-formal occasions yet a fine quality gemstone, the final outcome of this is a pretty piece of art.
An eye-clean ruby, unheated with such lustre and brilliance is a rare sight – even more rare than sourcing for an unheat fine quality sapphire. More often than not, unheated rubies coming out of current mines either lack clarity (not eye-clean) or lacks lustre or both. Further, less than 5% of rubies available in the market are unheated rubies.
1.8ct Ruby ring in a hot pink-red colour
