Montana Sapphire at Obsessed Over Gems
At the AGTA show, miner and owner Don Johnson (Obsessed Over Gems, Helena, Montana) showed us an array of unheated Montana sapphires in a range of hues, cuts, and sizes (figure 1) while describing what is in demand from his customers. Pale green is particularly popular, followed by pale blue.
“Silky” stones with a soft appearance were in high demand this year, an observation echoed by other vendors. The abundance of needle inclusions in some of Johnson’s silky stones rendered them translucent to virtually opaque, such as the dark green sapphire in figure 2 that he referred to as the “silk bomb.”
In response to the demand for natural colors and unaltered inclusions, Johnson has moved away from heat treating any newly mined sapphires. He has many of his stones precision cut by notable cutters, resulting in clean stones with so much fire that at first glance, one could mistake them for a stone with a much higher refractive index (figure 3).
For his larger and more significant stones, Johnson has been providing mine-to-market origin and traceability reports. These certifications document both the rough and the resulting cut stone. He uses two laboratory services (GIA and AGL) for each stone he deems important enough to provide this documentation for.
Johnson, along with many other vendors, sees no softening in the Montana sapphire market; in fact, it keeps getting stronger each year. He noted that the first day of the AGTA show this year was the busiest he has ever had. On that opening day, he sold almost all of the stones with origin and traceability reports that he had brought to Tucson.
