Australian Sapphires

Two regions produce almost all Australian sapphire. The Central Queensland fields around Rubyvale, Sapphire and Anakie have been worked since the 1870s and yield the deep blues, the golden yellows, and most of the parti material. The New England fields in northern New South Wales, centred on Inverell and Glen Innes, produce blues and the teal-toned stones.

Production is a fraction of what it once was. Most accessible alluvial deposits have been worked over, and what comes out now is largely from small operators rather than commercial mining. That scarcity has not yet fully translated into price, which is part of what makes good Australian material worth buying at the moment.

Parti sapphires

Parti stones show two or three distinct colour zones within a single crystal, usually blue with green or yellow, divided along sharp boundaries rather than blending. They are almost exclusively Australian, and nothing else on the market looks like them.

Each one is genuinely unique. The zoning pattern depends on how the crystal grew, so no two are alike. That has made them increasingly popular for sapphire engagement rings among people who want something identifiable as theirs. A well-cut parti stone shows its zones clearly from the face-up position rather than only from the side.

Teal and blue

Teal sits between blue and green and shifts noticeably depending on the light source. Australian teal has become one of the most sought-after coloured stones for bridal work over the past decade, and prices have moved accordingly.

The classic Australian blue is so saturated it can read close to black in poor light, then open into something striking under daylight. That depth is exactly why the material was historically undervalued: it does not photograph the way a lighter Ceylon blue does, and it does not flatter a badly lit jewellery case. Seen properly, in daylight, a good Australian blue is a serious stone.

Golden and yellow

Queensland produces yellow and golden sapphires in tones from pale lemon through to rich amber, comparable in colour to the yellow sapphires found in Sri Lanka. The colour comes from iron present during formation rather than from the beryllium diffusion treatment used elsewhere to force yellow into pale material. Australian yellows are usually unheated for that reason.

Treatment

Australian sapphire is heated less often than material from most other origins, partly because the colour is already saturated and partly because the deep blues do not respond well to it. Many of the stones here are unheated.

Where a stone has been heated, we say so, and where it has not, we say that too.
Heat treatment is not a defect; it is standard practice worldwide and produces perfectly good stones. The price difference is substantial though, and you should know which you are buying.

On cut

Australian sapphire has a reputation problem, and cut is most of the reason. A great deal of it was cut for weight retention rather than appearance, leaving stones that are too deep and go dark through the centre. A poorly cut Australian blue looks like a black stone; the same rough, cut properly, is vivid.

We select on cut quality as much as colour. It is the single biggest difference between Australian material that disappoints and Australian material that people fall in love with.

Visit our Perth showroom

Australian sapphire shifts more between light sources than almost any other stone, which makes it the hardest to judge from a photograph.
We are at Shop 3, 82 King Street in the Perth CBD. Call 1300 551 562 and we will show you these stones in daylight, which is the only fair way to see them.

Also see our natural sapphires collection for Ceylon material and the full colour range.