52 Fun Facts About Sapphire

Sapphire is a gem variety of which mineral?

Corundum: it is so hard and weather-resistant that its crystals collect in river gravels, where miners sift out many sapphires.

Sapphire is the traditional birthstone for which month?

September: its birthstone has excellent toughness and no cleavage, so it holds up well in rings worn every day.

Sapphires that are any colour other than blue are known in the trade as what?

They turn up in yellow, orange, green, purple and even colourless, though only the blue ones are what most people picture.

The rare sapphire variety padparadscha is named after the colour of which flower?

Lotus blossoms inspired the name, a marketable label that at first went only to stones from Sri Lanka, before finds in Vietnam and East Africa.

A padparadscha sapphire is prized for which unusual blend of colours?

Pink-orange shades are hard to describe, so buyers debate which stones deserve the padparadscha name, reaching for words like sunset, peach and salmon.

The star-like effect seen in a star sapphire is known by what name?

Asterism comes from light reflecting off tiny needle-like inclusions lined up inside the crystal, which gather the reflections into a star.

The needle-like inclusions that create a star sapphire's star are most often which mineral?

Rutile needles only throw a star when they are plentiful and lined up in a regular pattern inside the crystal, reflecting light along each line.

Star sapphires are usually cut into which shape so their star can show?

Cabochon stones are shaped into a smooth, polished dome, because the star would stay hidden inside a faceted cut.

Twelve-rayed star sapphires can form when the usual needle inclusions are joined by which second mineral?

Hematite adds a golden star over the usual whitish one, and the two overlap into twelve rays, as in some star sapphires from Thailand.

Which Gilded Age tycoon gave the Star of India to a museum?

J. P. Morgan had a gem expert assemble a collection for the 1900 Paris Exposition, then gave the whole collection away, star sapphire and all.

The Star of India is on display in which institution?

The American Museum of Natural History got the uninsured stone back in 1965, after one of the thieves led police to a bus-station locker in Miami.

The Star of India was stolen in 1964 by a gang whose best-known member went by which nickname?

Murph the Surf, Jack Murphy, had won trophies as a surfer before the heist, and after prison he spent decades working as a prison minister.

Why did the only alarm guarding the Star of India fail during the 1964 heist?

Its battery was dead, yet the thieves did not stay free for long: all three were arrested within two days.

The Logan Sapphire in the Smithsonian's gem collection is roughly the size of what?

A large chicken egg is about its size, and it once belonged to the wealthy Sassoon family of Bombay before diplomat Robert Guggenheim bought it as a present for his wife.

What does the 'Logan' in the Logan Sapphire refer to?

Its donor's married name came in 1962, when Rebecca Guggenheim wed John A. Logan, two years after she began giving the stone to the Smithsonian.

Which silent-film star bequeathed the Star of Bombay star sapphire to the Smithsonian?

Mary Pickford left the stone to the Smithsonian when she died in 1979, and it later lent its name to Bombay Sapphire gin.

The label of Bombay Sapphire gin carries a portrait of which monarch?

Queen Victoria suits a name drawn from the Raj, when British officers in India mixed gin into their bitter anti-malarial quinine tonic to make it drinkable.

Which singer's 2025 single 'Sapphire', sung partly in Punjabi, features Shah Rukh Khan in its video?

Ed Sheeran's 'Sapphire' was the first track for his album Play and set its direction, and he completed the album's recording in Goa with Indian musicians.

The Sri Lankan sapphire town of Ratnapura is known by which nickname?

City of Gems fits: the ground around Ratnapura is so rich that a 510 kg cluster of star sapphires turned up in 2021 when workmen were digging a well.

A black star sapphire picked up by a 12-year-old boy in 1938 served his family as what?

A doorstop, until jeweller Harry Kazanjian paid $18,000 for it in 1947, and the family built a new house with the money.

Which singer wore the 733-carat Black Star sapphire on television in 1971?

Cher wore it in a 1971 sketch, yet by 2010 the stone had never been worn again, surfacing only at occasional charity events.

Which country led world sapphire production by the 2000s, thanks to deposits around the town of Ilakaka?

Madagascar's sapphire rush began after a 1998 find near Ilakaka, turning a quiet rural village into a crowded boomtown within a few years.

In 1987, which country was the world's largest producer of sapphires?

Australia's sapphire fields produced little until large-scale mining began around 1960, yet by the 1980s the country was the world's biggest producer.

Sapphires from which origin command the highest premium in the gem trade?

Kashmir sapphires owe their prized velvety glow to very fine silk inclusions that scatter light and soften the look of the stone.

Which British princess's 2018 engagement ring is set with a padparadscha sapphire?

Princess Eugenie later chose a low-backed wedding dress that showed the scar from the scoliosis surgery she had at 12.

Sapphire has been the official state gem of which Australian state since 1985?

The state also gave its name to the famous 733-carat black star stone found there in 1938.

The prized Yogo sapphires are mined in which US state?

Montana's gold prospectors noticed blue pebbles among their gold at Yogo Gulch, but no one recognised them as sapphires until the 1890s.

Yogo sapphires are typically described as which shade of blue?

Cornflower-blue Yogos later passed into British hands: a London firm bought the mine in 1899, and it became known as the English Mine.

In the 1980s, Intergem marketed the Yogo as the world's only sapphire guaranteed to be what?

Untreated Yogos were a safe promise, because the stones come out of the ground with even colour and clarity and need no heating to improve them.

In 1895, Jake Hoover's cigar box of Yogo stones was appraised by which New York firm?

Tiffany's sent Hoover a check for $3,750 after its gem expert George Kunz examined the stones, yet Hoover soon sold his stake in the mine to other investors.

The Verneuil method for growing synthetic sapphire is also known by what name?

Flame fusion melts fine powder in an oxyhydrogen flame and lets the droplets build up a crystal, a cheap method that turned synthetic gems into an industry.

The Czochralski method, used to grow synthetic sapphire, was found when its inventor accidentally dipped what into molten tin?

His pen came out trailing a thin thread of solidified tin, and material grown by his method now goes into about 90 percent of semiconductor devices.

Which luxury brand released the Signature Touch, an Android phone with a sapphire screen, in 2014?

Vertu had given its handsets sapphire screens for years, yet in 2014 Kyocera's rugged Brigadier was billed as the first U.S. smartphone with one.

Titanium-sapphire lasers are popular for their unusual ability to do what?

Be tuned across a range of wavelengths from red to near-infrared, and that same broad range is what lets these lasers fire pulses lasting only femtoseconds.

The Greek word sappheiros, ancestor of 'sapphire', probably originally referred to which stone?

Lapis lazuli is sprinkled with glittering gold-coloured pyrite, which matches ancient descriptions of the stone far better than today's clear crystal.

According to traditional Hindu belief, wearing a sapphire makes which planet favourable to the wearer?

The planet is known as Shani in Hindu astrology, and blue sapphire is its prescribed gemstone.

Pope Innocent III decreed that a bishop's ring should be pure gold set with what?

An unengraved sapphire was meant to act as a seal of secrets, for the things a priest keeps locked up as if under seal from the less intelligent.

Mary, Queen of Scots owned a 'medicinal' sapphire pendant that she used to treat what?

Sore eyes were a classic sapphire cure: Albertus Magnus described using the stone to clear the eye, dipping it in cold water before and after.

In 1909 the Stuart Sapphire moved to the back of the Imperial State Crown to make way for what?

The Cullinan II diamond was cut from the Cullinan, the largest gem-quality diamond ever found, which the Transvaal government bought and presented to Edward VII.

A colour-change sapphire that looks blue outdoors typically turns which colour under incandescent light?

Purple under lamplight can come from traces of vanadium, and lab-grown sapphire with the same colour change is sold as imitation alexandrite.

In the King James Bible's Exodus, a sapphire sits in the second row of stones on which priestly garment?

The breastplate also held the Urim and Thummim, which Aaron wore over his heart whenever he went in before the Lord.

In the Book of Revelation, sapphire forms the second foundation stone of which city's wall?

New Jerusalem's sapphire foundation echoes Isaiah, where God promises to lay the restored city's foundations with sapphires.

The 510 kg cluster of star sapphires unearthed in Sri Lanka in 2021 was given what name?

The Serendipity Sapphire's name suits a lucky find, since the word serendipity comes from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka.

How much did Roy Whetstine claim to have paid for a 1,905-carat star sapphire in Tucson?

$10 was his claim, but a reporter found the appraiser had valued another stone of exactly the same weight several years before Whetstine said he found it.

Sapphire is chemically an oxide of which metal?

Aluminium oxide makes up almost all of a sapphire, and tiny traces of other elements are why the same mineral turns up in almost every colour.

Pokémon Sapphire came out on the same day in 2002 as which companion game?

Pokémon Ruby held Pokémon that Sapphire lacked, so completing the Pokédex meant trading with a friend who owned the other version.

The portrait reissued for Elizabeth II's 2017 Sapphire Jubilee shows her wearing sapphires given by whom?

George VI gave her the necklace and earrings as a 1947 wedding present, and she spent the jubilee day itself in quiet reflection, as it also marked his death.

Which part of a wristwatch is often made of sapphire?

The crystal covering the face is the most scratch-resistant choice in sapphire, but the material is so hard to cut that it is also the priciest.

In 1804, the Bishop of Aachen gave the sapphire-set Talisman of Charlemagne to which empress?

Joséphine handed it down to her daughter Hortense, whose son Napoleon III inherited it, and it left the family only in 1919, when it went to Reims.

Single-crystal sapphire's very low wear against metal has made it a material for which artificial joints?

Hip joints wear where the ball meets the socket with normal use, and that wear can loosen a replacement hip over the years.

Which element, diffused into sapphires under intense heat, can give them padparadscha-like colours?

Beryllium atoms are so small that they can diffuse right through a sapphire, even a large one, unlike older colouring treatments that stayed near the surface.

In many supermarkets, which checkout fixture often has a window made of sapphire?

The barcode scanner has packages sliding across its window all day, and sapphire is hard and tough enough to resist the scratches.