Can I get your opinion on what classic cornflower blue sapphire color looks like, gang? Like, just sort of a ballpark range?

[Arthur Kennedy]

My experience with natural blue sapphires so far have been with stones that look a bit too dark. So I was wondering if this image I found online is (approximately) what nice quality cornflower blue sapphire color looks like? In this example it only looks a little less dark than the royal blue sapphire next to it. And most of the royal blue sapphires I've seen are actually darker than that one (except when viewed in natural shaded light, that is--- in shaded outside light even a darker sapphire tends to look better and more blue).

What do you folks think? Are nice cornflower blue sapphires actually a little bit lighter than this example?

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

hmmm
i assume



this is going to vairy depending on screen colour but i would want them to be actually cornflower coloured

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

Excellent question and one I’d like an answer to!

This was sold to me as cornflower




This is a much blue budget friendly royal blue. It takes more light for it to look like this whereas the one above just looks great in random lighting

 

[Arthur Kennedy]

Excellent question and one I’d like an answer to!

This was sold to me as cornflower




This is a much blue budget friendly royal blue. It takes more light for it to look like this whereas the one above just looks great in random lighting

I think both of those rings are great, but the first one is definitely my favorite. THAT looks like the perfect sweet spot color-wise: not too light and not too dark.

 

[Arthur Kennedy]

hmmm
i assume



this is going to vairy depending on screen colour but i would want them to be actually cornflower coloured

An actual cornflower has too much Violet, in my opinion--- it looks more like a not quite top color tanzanite. But the cornflower color square above the photo of the cornflowers is lovely (with less purple and violet undertones).

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

I feel that left bottle of polish is cornflower and the right is royal.

 

[Arthur Kennedy]

Excellent question and one I’d like an answer to!

This was sold to me as cornflower




This is a much blue budget friendly royal blue. It takes more light for it to look like this whereas the one above just looks great in random lighting

You have some seriously BIG honkin' rings
in your collection! Diamonds, emeralds, sapphires--- yowza!

 

[Arthur Kennedy]

I feel that left bottle of polish is cornflower and the right is royal.

Your actual blue sapphire in this picture is without a doubt exactly the kind of shade I like best. Magnificent! If I could get a flame fusion lab blue sapphire that looked very close to that one I would be thrilled.

 

[Arthur Kennedy]

Ok, here's a natural GIA certified cornflower blue sapphire I found online. And this puppy looks waaaaay too light purple/violet/lavender. To me this just doesn't seem like a (mostly) blue sapphire. So I guess I prefer more of a royal blue that isn't overly saturated?

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

Ok, here's a natural GIA certified cornflower blue sapphire I found online. And this puppy looks waaaaay too light purple/violet/lavender. To me this just doesn't seem like a (mostly) blue sapphire. So I guess I prefer more of a royal blue that isn't overly saturated?

i worked in a garden centre for many years and sold a lot of cornflowers
i think this is pretty close

but i know the colours on my laptop are not always what everyone sees
also i think cornflowers come in many different shades these days
they are not native to here and they do not grow wild here

but i love the colour and would love a saphire this colour

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

Ok, here's a natural GIA certified cornflower blue sapphire I found online. And this puppy looks waaaaay too light purple/violet/lavender. To me this just doesn't seem like a (mostly) blue sapphire. So I guess I prefer more of a royal blue that isn't overly saturated?

I think you don’t like the purple tinge?

This looks like the actual flower cornflower blue whereas I feel that trade cornflower blue looks nothing like the actual flower cornflower colour. Trade cornflower is more of a vivid pure mid blue?

 

[dk168]

Ok, here's a natural GIA certified cornflower blue sapphire I found online. And this puppy looks waaaaay too light purple/violet/lavender. To me this just doesn't seem like a (mostly) blue sapphire. So I guess I prefer more of a royal blue that isn't overly saturated?

I see grey in the photo, however it could just be me and my eyesight!

DK

 

[glitterata]

I'm not sure there's any uniformity or agreement about trade names like cornflower blue and royal blue.

Here are three of my sapphire rings. The sapphire in the solitaire has a report from a lab in Sri Lanka that describes it as "Vivid Blue ('ROYAL BLUE')," but I would consider it cornflower. The darker stone in the antique filigree ring is what I would consider royal blue. And I wouldn't apply either of those names to the two stones in the navette ring, because they are not saturated enough and have a hint of green.

 

[glitterata]

Ok, here's a natural GIA certified cornflower blue sapphire I found online. And this puppy looks waaaaay too light purple/violet/lavender. To me this just doesn't seem like a (mostly) blue sapphire. So I guess I prefer more of a royal blue that isn't overly saturated?

Also, a lot depends on the lighting. Many sapphires are shifty. They look bluer in daylight and purpler in incandescent light.

 

[Autumn in New England]

I feel that left bottle of polish is cornflower and the right is royal.

I'd say this right here (the lovely Miss Gengar!) is indeed classic cornflower. They can be lighter too, which I don't personally recommend. Tone and saturation tend to go hand-in-hand with blue sapphire, so finding that sweet spot is your aim. Royal, though wonderfully saturated, often veers too dark in tone. Other shades you may want to look at, OP, are peacock (not to be confused with the teal variety) and velvet, which are sort of in between cornflower and royal. These are all subjective names, of course, but basically you'd be looking for just one notch deeper in tone, which in turn will give you the more intense saturation of a royal without being too dark. My sapphire was sold to me by Enhoerning as peacock.

 

[mellowyellowgirl]

@Autumn in New England that first cornflower is ridiculous!!! That should be pastel! It’s lighter than Bulbasaur!!!

 

[dk168]

I'd say this right here (the lovely Miss Gengar!) is indeed classic cornflower. They can be lighter too, which I don't personally recommend. Tone and saturation tend to go hand-in-hand with blue sapphire, so finding that sweet spot is your aim. Royal, though wonderfully saturated, often veers too dark in tone. Other shades you may want to look at, OP, are peacock (not to be confused with the teal variety) and velvet, which are sort of in between cornflower and royal. These are all subjective names, of course, but basically you'd be looking for just one notch deeper in tone, which in turn will give you the more intense saturation of a royal without being too dark. My sapphire was sold to me by Enhoerning as peacock.

Regardless of the name of the colour, the one that appeals to me the most is the one named "Velvet" on this pic.

DK

 

[dk168]

@Autumn in New England that first cornflower is ridiculous!!! That should be pastel! It’s lighter than Bulbasaur!!!

It's not what I would consider as "cornflower"!

DK

 

[Autumn in New England]

@Autumn in New England that first cornflower is ridiculous!!! That should be pastel! It’s lighter than Bulbasaur!!!

Yeah, I've seen "lighter" cornflowers, but that's just silly. Maybe they meant to say something else, since no other color has two examples?

 

[Autumn in New England]

Regardless of the name of the colour, the one that appeals to me the most is the one named "Velvet" on this pic.

DK

Right, it's best not to get too caught up in the trade names. Buy what you like! You can't go wrong with medium (5) to medium-dark tone (6) and vivid saturation (6). That is what I shoot for with 99% of gems I buy. The only one that didn't apply was my pad, which is medium-light tone (4) and strong saturation (5). This is the old GIA gemset chart that I still use. I wish all vendors still used it, so there'd be some bit of uniformity! Not an exact science, but a helpful guide.

 

[Autumn in New England]

Ok, here's a natural GIA certified cornflower blue sapphire I found online. And this puppy looks waaaaay too light purple/violet/lavender. To me this just doesn't seem like a (mostly) blue sapphire. So I guess I prefer more of a royal blue that isn't overly saturated?

Just keep in mind that the GIA did not certify this stone as "cornflower." I don't even know if they do. It is the vendor calling it that. The GIA called it "violetish-blue."

 

[Lisa Loves Shiny]

When I think of cornflower blue I think of a vibrant blue without much violet. Although violet blue is an extremely gorgeous color. I'm throwing my "cornflower" blue sapphire in the mix.

 

[Autumn in New England]

I see grey in the photo, however it could just be me and my eyesight!

DK

I agree... too light, too violet, and too desaturated.

 

[Autumn in New England]

When I think of cornflower blue I think of a vibrant blue without much violet. Although violet blue is an extremely gorgeous color. I'm throwing my "cornflower" blue sapphire in the mix.

I love how you set her! Yellow diamonds... and kites.

 

[LilAlex]

It's tricky, imo, because everything that doesn't meet "royal" criteria (super-strong saturation and medium-dark tone) is sold as "cornflower." (And even "royal" varies across the various labs that recognize it.) It's like the "champagne diamond" of sapphire. I think we have one royal and all the rest could pass for somebody's definition of cornflower although they are quite different.

I really like the Lotus color types, although it is clear that not every sapphire can be placed in one of those buckets (too gray, too undersaturated, touch of green, etc.). The Lotus archetypes are like the best-of-the-best in each of those hue/tone buckets. (Although the image I now see online is not as vivid as a remember. I have the "book" version.")

I love violet-ish blue.

 

[Autumn in New England]

It's tricky, imo, because everything that doesn't meet "royal" criteria (super-strong saturation and medium-dark tone) is sold as "cornflower." (And even "royal" varies across the various labs that recognize it.) It's like the "champagne diamond" of sapphire. I think we have one royal and all the rest could pass for somebody's definition of cornflower although they are quite different.

I really like the Lotus color types, although it is clear that not every sapphire can be placed in one of those buckets (too gray, too undersaturated, touch of green, etc.). The Lotus archetypes are like the best-of-the-best in each of those hue/tone buckets. (Although the image I now see online is not as vivid as a remember. I have the "book" version.")

I love violet-ish blue.

I love looking through Lotus' color designation page. The only one I don't agree with is the padparadscha example, since it's either pink with orange staining or bi-color (both of which would preclude it according to the LMHC).

 

[Mrsz1ppy]

My favorite color of sapphire is a word one no one uses when describing them—cobalt.

 

[LilAlex]

I love looking through Lotus' color designation page.

But this picture looks so much less vivid than it used to, right? Not sure what has happened. I know I have saturation issues when I upload photos here if it is png vs jpg -- but in this case even the original on the Lotus site looks so "meh." (Compare them to @Mrsz1ppy's avatar, for example.) Some of the individual examples are still amazing on the Lotus site but the color chart looks so flat.

And I agree on that weird variegated pad -- but at least it's the more vivid variety that I (and few others) prefer!

And I agree with @Mrsz1ppy above -- I think Lotus compares "Velvet" (or an adjacent one) to cobalt glass. I will look for my tiny book. It accompanied one of the bigger Hughes sapphire books that I bought years ago.

 

[Arthur Kennedy]

I'm not sure there's any uniformity or agreement about trade names like cornflower blue and royal blue.

Here are three of my sapphire rings. The sapphire in the solitaire has a report from a lab in Sri Lanka that describes it as "Vivid Blue ('ROYAL BLUE')," but I would consider it cornflower. The darker stone in the antique filigree ring is what I would consider royal blue. And I wouldn't apply either of those names to the two stones in the navette ring, because they are not saturated enough and have a hint of green.

Beautiful rings! And that big solitaire blue sapphire in particular is perfection--- not too dark and not too light. That's exactly the type of color I'm looking for in a lab Sapphire, actually.

 

[Arthur Kennedy]

When I think of cornflower blue I think of a vibrant blue without much violet. Although violet blue is an extremely gorgeous color. I'm throwing my "cornflower" blue sapphire in the mix.

Magnificent! Another perfect blue.