Hi All, I have a client who is looking for a gemstone called
Padparadsha. She says it comes from India and is the color of Orange.
She wants an 8 mm Trillian cut. Anyone out there familiar with it? If
so, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks, Mary Ann Archer
@Mary_Ann_Archer
She is referring to an orangey pink sapphire. Unfortunately it is a
dangerous stone to be selling right now due to the issues around
diffusion treatment using beryllium to alter the color of sapphire to
this particular hue. Daniel R. Spirer, GG
Mary Ann,
Padparadscha is a lovely orange-pink sapphire. Natural color
padparadscha is quite rare, and very beautiful. But beware! There is
a large amount of “padparadscha” sapphire on the market right now
that gets its color from a beryllium diffusion heat treatment. The
sapphire heaters in Thailand discovered this method of creating the
color in lower-grade sapphire about two years ago, and churned out a
very large amount into the world markets, much of which was sold
without disclosure. Disclosure of the treatment is more common now,
but it’s still a matter of Buyer Beware. The beryllium-diffusion
treatment is very difficult to detect, even if you are conversant
with gemology, and there are thousands of lab certs roaming around
out there that certify the beryllium stones as simply “heat treated.”
I would question any lab cert from Asia more than a year old.
Consider submitting any stone offered to you as natural, untreated
padparadscha to GIA, AGTA, or one of the other well-known gem labs in
the U.S. Keep in mind that beryllium-diffused stones are not
anywhere near as valuable as natural, untreated padparadscha.
To learn more about padparadscha and the controversy over the
treated material, visit Colored Stone magazine’s web site,
www.colored-stone.com. Here are a couple of links to articles from
Colored Stone about the treated material, including a resource page
with a variety of links to other sources of
http://www.colored-stone.com/stories/mar03/bdslinks.cfm
http://www.colored-stone.com/stories/mar03/trdisclosure.cfm
http://www.colored-stone.com/stories/mar03/bdsresearch.cfm
Good luck!
Suzanne Wade
Writer/Editor
Phone: (508) 339-7366
Fax: (928) 563-8255
@Suzanne_Wade1
http://www.rswade.net
it is a pinkish orange sapphire, realyl pretty, natural are really
expensive, you can go for a berrilium diffused one and get a really
nice color, they are in the 150-300 per carat, the natural 2-3000
per carat. if you have any other questions let me know, i am a
graduate gemologist and i know where you can get some
Aaron A Tracy
If I get things right Padparascha is supposed to be a corundum with
all the colours of the sapphire family, from white to the blues to
red. Actually the sum total colour of Padparascha is orangish,
pinkish. I know about one of the vendors namely K.G. I. Inc. 1800
KRIS GEMS ( 1 800 574 7436 ) who sell these and they guarantee them
to be free of diffusion or any other treatment other than being heat
treated. Take Care ya all. Nilesh.
Padparadsha saffire is quite attractive. I had a customer purchase a
Phillip Youngman oval a while back, and they wanted me to come up
with a design for a ring with it. I learned that padparasha was the
color of a lotus, so I came up with a ring with stylized lotus
blossom on each side, with the tips of the flower petals holding the
stone.
Spike Cornelius
Portland, Or.
RC ArtMetal
The best way to describe a “Padparascha” (a derivation of the term
Padma (= Five) parascha. It is a perfect combination of the five
colors, and one cannot really be categorized into any one color or
combination of any two three or four colors. It is a perfect
combination of Blue, Yellow, Pink, Green Red Color (it gives the
color of the Lotus Petal at its peak). The connoisseurs go after the
perfect combination of color and unheated stones, but some prefer the
orangy appeareance or pinkish orangish and or heated stones (but
definitely not the diffused or berilyum treated). This is the best I
know of the padparascha sapphires
Anil