Blue Sapphire Martini Style Earrings

Blue Sapphire
Martini Style Earrings

In the late afternoon I walked down to the shore. We’re already two days into summer. Everything is lush and green. Cattail leaves are 6 feet tall. A white pleasure boat is heading south out to sea. A white sail of a sailboat is coming back into the harbor. Two fishermen are out on the rocks casting into the sea. There’s a serious sea breeze with warm winds coming from the south. Twenty-five feet out from shore, the water is teal. Beyond, it quickly slips into sapphire blue. Almost all the world I see from where I’m sitting is the Atlantic blue sea, with a pastel blue sky above.

Our world has so much blue, the ocean, and the sky, and it’s not just seasonal, it’s year-round. I believe the blue of sapphire touches the soul. I believe it calms and comforts our psyche. I believe blue sapphire is a perfect slice of serenity.

The second hardest gem to diamond, blue sapphire can be cut and set to last a lifetime and beyond. A pair of Martini earrings properly set could be worn by 50 generations of women for a thousand years and still look brand new when the 51st generation inherits them.

Why We Take Sapphire Earrings So Seriously

We take the potential for longevity seriously. Elizabeth, a new jeweler on the Cross staff brought me a recent group of newly set gems for review. Everything was spot-on perfect. One pair of earrings was so perfect, so spot on ideal I said, “These could last a thousand years.” Truth, two thousand would be easy. I said one thousand, though. She beamed. Our standards are high.

Blue Sapphire Earrings

We hand select our blue sapphires. We sit and individually match the pairs. We’ve tried buying sapphire earrings complete; no one has the quality we seek. The jewelry business worldwide follows an easy path. They choose dark blue sapphires because they all easily match. The problem, even if you can see a flicker of blue in the jeweler’s showcase, raise them to your ears and there is no blue left. The sapphires look navy blue or black.

We choose our sapphires two shades lighter so that when you’re wearing the earrings they will sparkle blue at your ear. Yes, it’s more of a challenge to match…your worth the extra effort. Our blue Martini Sapphire Earrings are the prettiest blue sapphires in the world.

The Cross
Martini Setting

A dozen or more years ago we identified a type of earring setting, a 3-prong “Martini” design as being superior to the traditional 4-prong basket setting used for pierced earrings for nearly two hundred years.

1) The 3-prong Martini is a simpler, cleaner, neater look.

2) The 3-prongs come to a common rounded point in the back allowing the earring to rest and nest more naturally on the ear lobe so it doesn’t unnecessarily stick out.

3) Several sources make a 3-prong design. We tested five of them for weight, taper, excellence of setting, aesthetic flow, and safety, and then chose one style, and have stayed with it ever since.

Note: During the early pandemic when everyone closed, our mounting source did too. We tested some alternative sources, our original Martini choice was clearly superior. We waited four months for them to re-open. During that time we simply stopped selling Martini earrings because quality is so vital in everything we do.

4) Here is a detail no one ever talks about: the ear nut on the earring. We either order earrings without ear nuts or if they come with ear nuts we remove them and replace them with our double-weight gold ear nut. It’s much better and safer. The average ear nut sold in America weighs .25 – .33 carat. Our ear nuts weigh .75 carat. Two together are 1.50 carats. There’s more gold for the spring tension in the earring to hold the earring on more securely. With more holding power, Cross earrings are safer earrings. All Cross earrings come with our special double-weight ear nut.

5) Gapping and adjusting. This is probably a foreign concept to most jewelers. Our shop does it every day. We adjust the ear nut to fit the post, loose enough to slide on, tight enough to grip and hold securely. Advice, don’t switch ear nuts around to various earrings because ear nuts should be adjusted to fit each individual post on each earring.

A final note: our matched pairs of blue sapphire earrings you may wear to dinner with confidence that even in low light your dinner companion will see flashes of blue and sparks of brilliance by candlelight.