Sri Lankan Sapphires (Ceylon)

Posted by | Tuesday, April 10, 2018

More sapphires over 100 carats in size have come from Sri Lanka than any other location.

The Logan Sapphire

423.00 ct Logan Sapphire in the Smithsonian (wikipedia.com)

Sapphires have been mined in Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) for over 2000 years. These sapphires are known for their brilliance due to their generally lighter tone than Kashmir or Burmese sapphires. This lighter tone is, in general, due to a lower iron content found in those sapphires. The cornflower blue color of these gems is normally associated with Ceylon sapphires.

Sapphire mining has been and still is a primitive operation. Today the government actually restricts mechanized mining, partly to keep the output low so the miners will have work for hopefully hundreds of years.

The island is Sri Lanka has one of the world’s largest concentrations of gems and over 40 gem species are mined there. Sapphires are generally recovered from river gravel. Some fashioning (treatment and cutting) is done locally but much of the output is treated and cut in Thailand.
1.77 ctw Ceylon Blue Sapphire and White Sapphire Ring in 14k white gold

Sri Lankan (Ceylon) Sapphire Ring

This entry was posted in .