The most valuable Gemstones in the Corundum Mineral Category is Sapphire

The most valuable color of the sapphire is a cornflower blue color, known as Kashmir sapphire. Other color sapphires are yellow, orange, pink etc which are sourced from regions like Madagascar, Thailand, Nigeria, Srilanka, Australia.

When the trace elements are iron and titanium, the sapphire is blue and the more iron the sapphire contains, the darker the blue. Chromium can cause the pink of pink sapphire.

Fine colored sapphire with a deep color and excellent transparency can reach several thousand dollars a carat.

Colorless sapphires were once popular diamond imitations, and they have staged a comeback as accent stones in recent years.

Yellow sapphire is said to bring prosperity and wisdom.

Heating colorless and very pale sapphires to high temperature is done to give them an intense color, this treatment can also improve the clarity of the stones by removing tiny inclusions.

Sapphires can show a phenomenon called asterism, or the star effect. This phenomenon usually appears as a six ray star pattern across a cabochon-cut stone’s curved surface. The star effect can be seen in any color of sapphires, and it arises from white light reflecting from numerous tiny, oriented needle-like inclusions.

Sapphire is a tough and durable gem and the only natural gemstone harder than sapphire is diamond.