GRADING REPORT PPSA054
- Identification: Natural Unheated & Untreated Sapphire
- Carat: 0.54
- Shape: Pear/Shield
- Measures: 6.30x4.82x2.11 (millimeter)
- Color Grade: Excellent+
- Tone: MD60
- Color Zoning: Visible (see comment*) and/or
- Clarity: Moderately Included (see comment*)
- Cutting Grade: Very Good (miraculous)
- Brilliancy: 50%
- Depth: 44%
- Origin: Burma
- Treatment: None
Certificate No: IGI 389902014 (see 'more images')
Overall Grade: Very Good+
Comment: Surprisingly, this trillion came from IGI defined as 'sapphire' not 'ruby' but even more confusing was the lack of origin. IGI used to add origins whenever possible and without being asked for it. Last month, when an extraordinarily clean Burma ruby returned without origin, I surmised that it had been too clean to ID its origin (which happens sometimes). This 0.54ct, however, clearly provides enough internal clues, even to the unaided eye and yet: no country. As soon as the holidays have passed, I need to clarify and if necessary, dole-out extra cash for its origin. Anyways, look at the UV photo below or under 'more images'. What fluorescence! Amazing especially because the UV-torch is of simple quality and its batteries are half-dead; nor did I shelter the camera from other light-sources or such tricks, and nevertheless, in person, the fluorescence hits even stronger. Should I meet and survive a dragon with less impressive eyes, I'll be severely disappointed, not only in dragons but in all legendary creatures. Instead of magic, let's look at cold numbers. Consider 6x5mm face-up from a half-carat gem with far under 50% depth and NO nasty window? No! Not really, or only under ill-will. To be one hundred-percent safe from flaw-seeking-missiles: Set the gem on a super-bright-white glossy surface and point a strong, not-half-dead, torch right into the gem: yes, then you may suspect, even see lines behind the center. On normal paper or without a torch, it turns difficult, even for the ill-willed. (Oh, if you are new here: Reading through a gem's center aka 'window' is amongst a gemmologist's worst nightmares.) How then is this magic possible when meeting dragons is even less likely? You will have to study the gem under the lens and the camera with its digital zoom for a short day (or a long one, if it includes explaining the impossible in writing) to find several answers. Fear not, it's easy: A lucky combination of color-zones and orange inclusions, plus the ideal position of each facet just where it belongs and most importantly, the amazing deep-pink fluorescence, all these features together revealed a miracle in the very last hours of 2019. If that's not a good sign for 2020: a pendant-size blazing neon-pink unheated sapphire far under one carat but with a dragon-sized face-up and (almost) no window. True magic and less expensive than feeding dragons, too.
That's all I can produce today. One gem remains for 2020. Happy new year!
P.S. If you consider the orange/red areas as color-zones, we have a 'lightly included' gem. If they are defined as inclusions, we must call a 'Moderately Included'. Whatever they are called, with positive thinking, they are helpful in closing the window and adding color in the tip.
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