Sri Lanka — återförsäljare och inköpsguide

"Ceylon sapphire" is trade shorthand for corundum mined in Sri Lanka, and the island has been digging it out of river gravel for longer than any other source still working. Blue is the headline. Padparadscha, yellow and star sapphire follow, then cat's eye chrysoberyl, alexandrite, spinel and the blue-sheen moonstone of Meetiyagoda. Below: the districts and what each turns up, how a stone travels from a Ratnapura pit to a Colombo exporter, how heat is disclosed on a report, and how a laboratory decides that a sapphire is Sri Lankan rather than Madagascan. That last question costs buyers more money than any other on this page.

The gem gravels

Nearly everything comes out of illam, the gem-bearing gravel left behind when the old metamorphic rocks of the Highland Complex weathered down. There are no hard-rock sapphire mines to speak of. Pits are hand dug, licensed one at a time, and worked by small crews who share the finds by custom rather than contract. It has stayed that way for centuries and the state seems content to keep it so.

Ratnapura is the historic centre; the name means city of gems. Its gravels give blue and yellow sapphire, padparadscha, star stones, cat's eye, spinel and garnet, sometimes from the same pit. Elahera, in the north-central dry zone, opened up in the 1950s and is where the bigger sapphire crystals come from, along with the milky geuda rough that responds to heat. Balangoda in the hill country produces geuda too, plus a share of the finer unheated blues. Parcels also carry names such as Okkampitiya, Kataragama and Rakwana. Meetiyagoda is moonstone country and little else.

What the island is known for

The classic Ceylon blue is bright rather than deep. Medium tone, high clarity, a lively look under daylight that dealers call cornflower without ever quite agreeing what cornflower is. It runs paler than Burmese material and far paler than the inky Australian and Thai stones. Set beside a Madagascan sapphire of the same tone it will often show more life, though we have seen plenty of exceptions in both directions.

Padparadscha, from the Sinhalese for lotus blossom, is the pink-orange that every laboratory now defines with a colour chart. Too pink and it is pink sapphire. Too orange and it is orange. There is no appeal. Yellow sapphire is sold across South Asia as pukhraj and is best bought unheated, since heated yellows are plentiful and cheap.

Beyond corundum: spinel in pink, red, violet and the rare cobalt blue; alexandrite that runs larger than Russian stones but with a softer change; honey-coloured cat's eye with a sharp eye; and Meetiyagoda's blue-sheen moonstone. Zircon, garnet and tourmaline fill out the parcels.

From pit to Colombo

Rough goes from the pit through a broker to Ratnapura's morning street market, then down to Beruwala on the coast. Beruwala's China Fort quarter is the island's main trading and heating centre. Colombo holds the exporters, the larger cutting houses and the National Gem and Jewellery Authority, which licenses the trade and runs testing counters. Two facts matter here. Sri Lanka imports rough from Madagascar and East Africa to heat and cut, so a stone bought in Beruwala is not always Sri Lankan. And every export passes through the Authority, which means a legitimate seller can show you the paperwork and an evasive one cannot.

Heat and the report

Heat is the story of modern Ceylon sapphire. In the 1970s the trade found that milky geuda turns blue in a furnace, and from that point most Ceylon sapphire sold has been heated. Heat is permanent, accepted, and disclosed. Unheated stones carry a large premium at every grade. GIA, Gübelin, SSEF, AIGS, GRS and Lotus write "no indications of heating" or "indications of heating", and some add a comment on residues or low-temperature heat. Beryllium diffusion is a different animal. It produces orange, yellow and padparadscha-like colours and must be reported as diffusion, not heat. Treat a verbal "no heat" as a claim until a laboratory says otherwise. We would not pay an unheated premium on a dealer's word.

Origin on a report is an opinion. The laboratory compares inclusions, trace-element chemistry and spectra with reference stones of known source. Sri Lankan sapphire tends to be low in iron and often shows long fine silk, liquid fingerprints, negative crystals and zircon inclusions ringed by tension haloes. The hard separation is from Madagascar's Ilakaka field, whose geology is closely related. When the evidence overlaps, a laboratory may decline to give an origin at all. Older reports say "Ceylon", newer ones "Sri Lanka" or "Sri Lanka (Ceylon)". Same place.

Buying notes

Three questions. Is it heated. Which laboratory has examined it. What does the report say about origin. The report should give species and variety, treatment status and, if you are paying for it, an origin opinion. The common misrepresentations run in a predictable order: Madagascan sapphire sold as Ceylon, heated sold as unheated, beryllium-diffused described as heated, and pink or orange sapphire sold as padparadscha. If you buy on the island, have the stone tested before you pay, and check the export paperwork.

Buying through the register

Every dealer listed on this page has had legitimacy, certification practice and disclosure checked by GemsVerified. That check covers how a dealer operates. It does not extend to the stones in any one parcel.

Ask for the laboratory report on anything significant. Have treatment status confirmed in writing on the invoice. GemsVerified verifies dealers, not individual stones.