Whenever I’m asked to repair a gemstone, I try to get the story behind why the gemstone was damaged. I admit that part of me just wants to know the “gory details” about the accident. But the professional gemcutter is looking for some insights into what it takes to damage a gem & how best to approach the repair.
This sapphire recently came to me from a jeweler tasked with upgrading a ring. The combination of a long deep table scratch and a small, deep impact fracture struck me as unusual, so I had to ask. This poor sapphire had been both dropped from a height onto an iron table leg and tossed into a purse that already held a diamond ring.
Sapphire’s superb hardness & good toughness makes it an excellent choice for a daily-wear ring. But it’s not indestructible. Hard wear and carelessness can damage sapphire, sometimes beyond repair. (This is also true of diamonds, BTW; I suspect the diamond that scratched this sapphire received some chipping along its girdle or crown facet junctions in return.)
Interestingly, that small ding proved to be more significant damage than the dramatic looking scratch from the diamond. The scratch proved to be superficial, relatively minor repair. Fractures from that small ding went deeper than the scratch and, since they were eye-visible, I had to dig deeper to correct them.
Notice how much I had to enlarge the table to get underneath the scratch & dent damage here. A repair like this forces the cutter to from the requested “just repolish the table” to a crown recut. Happily, this gave me a chance to clean up those facet junction abrasions.
start: 3.79ct, 7.88 x 10.56 x 5.17mm
finished: 3.74ct., 7.87 x 10.54 x 5.10mm.
Client was very pleased with the result & the sapphire is now being enjoyed in a new ring. Hopefully, it avoids any more violent encounters with furniture & other jewelry.
I’m happy to help you with whatever colored gemstone repair you might come across — and would love to know the story behind it.