Millennium Sapphire

“Largest Sapphire Crystal Examined”, Lab News, July 1996.

Lab News: The monthly broadsheet of the AIGS Laboratory Volume 1, Issue 3 July 1996

Largest Sapphire Crystal Examined

A rough stone of special note was recently examined in the AIGS Laboratory. The stone was sapphire and the first and most obvious point of note was its size, at a huge 17.97 kilograms It certainly would not fit through our normal in-take windows, and could only be carried by the in-take staff with some effort. The second and possibly the most interesting point for gemologists was the origin, which was stated to be Madagascar.

This locality has been providing the Bangkok market with a new source of blue sapphire for many months now, with much of the material being good commercial quality, on a par with Sri Lanka, and with some stones being of a particularly nice quality.

The stone is seen above in the hands of Mr. Jeffery Berman, who states that he is the independent marketing agent of the stone. A large portion of the surface area is blue in color and the transparency varies from being opaque to translucent.