FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Tom Mazanec]

Are there names for green or yellow sapphire?

The way orange-pink is called padparadscha (or red ruby, of course).
Why not (or do they have them)?

[Fiebre Verde]

[Riccardo Modanesi]

Hi to everybody!
As a gemmologist I was educated at the German Gemmological Association in Idar-Oberstein. Their motto is: "no chrome no ruby, no chrome no emerald". It means if you don't see the double line at the red field of the optical window (using a spectroscope), you have to classify the red corundum as a "red sapphire" and not as a ruby, as well as green beryls: just those crystals showing the double line on red are to be classified "emeralds"; the other ones are "green beryls", "vanadium beryls" (if vanadium is seen), etc.
Greetings from Italy by Riccardo.

[Riccardo Modanesi]

... and be careful with padparadscha! Many of them are beryl-treated corundums!
Greetings once again by Riccardo.

[lluis]

Completely agreed with Fiebre Verde.

I worked in a gems dealer. I had been in contact with gem dealers in spain. Never have seen any padparascha one... And I was trying to find any I could afford....

LLuís

[mmauthner]

Hi Tom,

Sapphires are basically classified into two groups: 'normal' sapphire, which is blue, and 'fancy' sapphire, which can be any color other than blue or the red that qualifies as ruby. Fancy sapphires are then conventionally named using a color descriptor (e.g. orange, yellow, green, pink, purple, violet, etc.). There are also varietal or trade name descriptors used that also denote a particular color and 'padparadsha' is one of them. That name pertains to a very particular hue range of orange-pink. Other such names are 'golden sapphire' (essentially a yellow sapphire), or 'amethystine' (essentially a purple sapphire), among a few.
In addition to color descriptors for fancy sapphires, phenomenal qualifiers are also possible such as 'star' for a stone exhibiting asterism, or 'color change' for a stone that markedly exhibits color of a different hue under different light sources.
Normal (blue) sapphires and rubies that exhibit asterism are respectively called 'star sapphire' and 'star ruby.'
Just a further word about ruby: mineralogically, a chromium-bearing red corundum is considered "ruby," however, since most pink sapphire is also colored by chromium, most gemologists part from this definition and define ruby is only that gem quality corundum which exhibits the correct hue and intensity of red as 'ruby.' Anything paler is a pink sapphire, and darker is just corundum.
Season's best,
Mark