True Blue Alternatives to Sapphire

Shoppers’ love of blue, the world’s favorite color, drives the huge demand for blue sapphire. However, that popularity isn’t without consequences for the trade. Prices of the finest blue-sapphire goods continue to climb with no end in sight, potentially pricing some clients out of this beloved gem.

Fortunately there are additional options, and Rapaport Magazine has asked experts to weigh in on the best alternatives.

Tanzanite

Royal Touch’s Ashish Rawat is a go-to source for tanzanite, the blue variety of zoisite discovered in Tanzania in 1967. His 28-year-old, New York-based firm sells a 50-50 mix of loose gems and finished tanzanite jewelry for wholesale. While his knowledge of supply and his close ties with miners in the country give him an edge, this gem “is getting tougher to mine, and there’s less inventory in the market compared to previous years,” he reports. “I now see prices up 35% to 40% in the last 12 to 18 months.”

Tanzanite is a great blue-stone option due to its range of colors, from peacock-greenish-blue to bicolors and blue-violets. It’s also available in purple and pink. It’s a 6 to 7 on the Mohs hardness scale, and you can find huge sizes — up to 70 carats, he maintains. In blue sapphire, that size is virtually unattainable.
Royal Touch only deals in the cleanest tanzanite varieties available. “At trade shows, people always ask me if my gems are sapphires,” remarks Rawat. “Clients are blown away by the sizes and colors.”

Blue zircon

This super-pretty gemstone with a deceptive name (it has nothing to do with cubic zirconia) has a high refractive index that makes it sparkle like a diamond, but at a more attainable price. It’s a 6 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale, and it comes in a variety of colors — blue being the most popular.

“I believe in blue zircon,” says Laurie Watt of Mayer & Watt, a loose-gemstone dealer based in Maysville, Kentucky. “Carat-wise, it is our best seller. Blue zircon has its own place in the market.”

Blue zircon is often heated to bring out its aquatic, teal-like color and even to achieve Paraiba-ish shades. The color is known for being stable. Sometimes this stone even exhibits color-change properties. And while zircon isn’t available in the deep shades of blue that sapphire can boast, its still has an appealing range of hues.

Consumer prices per carat can start as low as $70 and go as high as $1,800 “or more for rarer stones,” adds Watt. You can also find large sizes — up to 15 carats. Zircon is mainly found in Cambodia, but Malawi, Burma (Myanmar) and other countries have deposits as well.

All of these factors contribute to its popularity. “It’s hard to keep blue zircon in stock,” Watt relates.

Aquamarine

It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t love aquamarine, a pale-blue to light-greenish-blue beryl. “People are drawn to blue, and aquamarine fits the bill,” says Tracy Lindwall of Nomad’s in New York.

The color range of aquamarine is dramatic — from pale to nearly colorless to almost denim. The aquamarine inventory at Nomad’s is half-treated, half-unheated, and the gem supplier has a large collection of unheated vivid-blue material from Madagascar. One of the most famous sources of aquamarine is the Santa Maria de Itabira mine in Minas Gerais, Brazil, which produces specimens with a medium saturation and no brown or yellow tints. Other source countries include Mozambique, Madagascar and India.

In the 1980s, a fine pocket was uncovered in Nigeria. German cutters called the material from that deposit “Santa Maria Africana,” according to Lindwall. “We got a parcel from a German dealer in 2014 and sold through most of it. But we are happy to partner with a Brazilian aquamarine miner near the [country’s] Espírito Santo site,” which yields fine qualities as well.

Buyers can be picky about clarity. “You can find clean aquamarine, unlike rubellite,” says Lindwall. Retail prices start around $200 per carat, with fine qualities upward of $1,600 per carat. On the Mohs scale, aquamarine is 7.5 to 8.

Paraiba tourmaline

This electric-blue tourmaline from Brazil stunned the market when it was discovered in the late 1980s. Its never-before-seen Windex-blue hues paved the way for its $160-a-carat consumer prices — sums that climbed much higher once the trade recognized the gem was special. While the original Mina da Batalha mine in the northeastern Brazilian state of Paraiba is no longer active, dealers like Samuel Sulimanov of New York-based Samuel Sylvio Designs still source it from four other locations.

“In Brazil, there is one active mine with good crystals and sizes and colors that are more green than blue, and included,” observes Sulimanov. “There is another mine in Nigeria and two mines in Mozambique.”
Paraiba or Paraiba-like tourmaline is a 7 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale, and it only bears that Windex-blue color when heated, due to the presence of copper. Strong crystals mean more durability and fewer fractures and inclusions. “Included stones break easier,” explains Sulimanov.

Rough Paraiba ranges from purple and pink to blue and green. Buyers should assume most Paraiba is heated.

While this type of tourmaline is rarer — and pricier — than diamonds and sapphires, it offers a one-of-a-kind blue hue that collectors appreciate.

Blue spinel

Bryan Lichtenstein of 3090 Gems in San Francisco, California, specializes in hard-to-find gem varieties like zoisite and spinel, with blue spinel in particular serving as a niche. On the Mohs scale, spinel is an 8, and in treatments, oiling is becoming more prevalent.

Blue spinel originates in Sri Lanka, Burma, Madagascar, Tanzania and Vietnam, with Vietnam’s Luc Yên being the most notable source of neon-cobalt hues. Blue spinel was rarer than red spinel until the recent finds in Madagascar and in Mahenge, Tanzania.

Prices vary widely due to location and cobalt-to-iron content; high cobalt and low iron create vibrant colors. Cobalt-blue is the rarest variety.

“Cobalt-blue spinel glows,” says Lichtenstein. “There’s no darkness at all.” In this shade, 2-carat gems sell to consumers for as much as $120,000 per-carat.

Blue-spinel hues range from Burmese material’s typically grey and purple undertones to the nice blue colors of Sri Lankan stones that rarely obtain a cobalt-blue designation from labs. Grey-blue colors can start around $1,000 a carat. Recent Tanzanian blue-spinel finds have received cobalt spinel reports and can be as large as 20 carats. Madagascar is the newest source.

“Some [stones] are eye-clean, but we’re hoping for loupe-clean material,” says Lichtenstein.

Main image: Blue sapphire. (Byjeng/Shutterstock)

This article is from the July-August 2024 issue of Rapaport Magazine. View other articles here.