Buying And Collecting Antique Sapphire Jewelry

Antique sapphire jewelry comes in many shapes, sizes, and colors. Despite popular belief, sapphires come in many colors besides blue. Antique sapphire jewelry was often ornate and complicated in design, not at all like today's sleek, simplistic designs. Often an antique sapphire jewelry collection begins with a piece of jewelry given as a gift or handed down as a family heirloom.



Sapphires come in many colors besides blue, which is a little known fact to many people. Besides varying colors of blue, they also come in green, pink, orange, yellow, brown, black, mauve, and other colors. How is this possible? Sapphires are created in multiple colors when metallic alloys interact with the parent material, creating brilliant colors besides the signature blue color that many of us tend to associate with the term 'sapphire.' Only recently have jewelry buyers began to realise that sapphires truly represent every color of the rainbow and can offer many advantages over traditional gemstones of similar color. Sapphires are some of the hardest stones known to man, just slightly softer than diamonds. And sometimes, they are much more reasonably priced.



Antique sapphire jewelry offers up some unusual designs to modern counterparts. While most modern designs strive for large stones and sleek, clean design, antique sapphire jewelry is none of this. Antique sapphire jewelry sometimes encompassed a large stone alone or with several stones. Other times antique sapphire jewelry was comprised of many smaller stones together, made to create an ornate image or shape. Gold composition in decades past was also quite different than what it is in the modern era, with solid gold being more common than today. It is quite common to find antique sapphire jewelry with 18k to solid gold settings where today a 24k gold setting or an 18k setting may be near impossible to come by.



What does one need to know about collecting antique sapphire jewelry? An investment in a few good jewelry books never hurts anything. Knowing that color may vary due to composition, that sapphires come in different colors, and that certain jewelry trends were parts of different decades can be valuable information to a collector. Essential information such as care, clarity, cut, and coloration are also a must. A good book or two should be able to help a novice with all of these kinds of topics, and point them in the right direction for learning more.



As for collecting, where does one begin to look for antique sapphire jewelry? Looking at antique shops as well as attending estate auctions, yard sales, thrift store sales, and rummaging through so-called junk shops can sometimes yield the greatest of treasure for a collector. Sometimes the internet can help a collector expand their collection but of course caution is advised.



Also, some jewelers specialise in selling antique jewelry so it never hurts to inquire of jewelers if they sell antique sapphire jewelry in addition to contemporary pieces. Antique sapphire jewelry, collected for enjoyment and spurred on by perhaps the inheritance of an heirloom or a gift given in good taste, never goes out of style and is something that can be treasured not only by generations of the past but by generations to come.