Back in the 1920s, they made rings that looked a lot like this. Most of the rings from the 1920s were white gold or platinum. We know two brothers who, in 2025, 100 years later, are exquisite craftsmen and who also possess a contemporary magic wand that allows them to create things a hundred years later that are superior to what was made in 1925. We are astounded by our good fortune to have found this pair of jewelry geniuses. We work closely with the brothers to create some of our most favorite designs.
The blue sapphire we selected from a small shop in Southeast Asia was chosen for its purity of blue, its brilliance in cutting, and how it holds its color, even on cloudy days and in shadowed light.
Pacific and the Northwest Passage
Blue Sapphire & Diamond Ring
18K white gold ring. At the center is a 1-carat round brilliant blue sapphire with a .80-carat total weight of natural high-white earth-mined ideal-cut diamonds set east-west. In the swirls and curls of the supporting understructure are 36 little diamonds weighing .39 carats total weight. The combined total weight of diamonds is 1.19 carats. This ring is designed to be either a left or right-hand ring.
Why We Call This Ring
Pacific and the Northwest Passage
Blue Sapphire & Diamond Ring
After Lewis and Clark left St. Louis, one year and six months later, they arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River. They saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time in 1805. We call this ring “Pacific and the Northwest Passage”. It glitters in diamond, like sunlight on the waves. The blue sapphire in the center is the ocean…the Pacific. After a year and a half of trekking, searching for a northwest passage, it’s easy to imagine what they felt as they looked out over a vast blue sea on the other side of North America.
A Good Real Estate Deal
4 cents/acre
Two years before Lewis and Clark’s overland arrival on the West Coast, on April 30, 1803, President James Madison bought a portion of the western half of America from France for 4 cents an acre. Some in Congress questioned how much he had spent. Our government, though, wasted little time sending an expedition to find a good path to the Pacific across this new acquisition.
Why We Love This Ring
Viewed from the top, it’s simple, understated with a classic blue sapphire center and two big white diamonds left and right. Viewed from the side, our Northwest Passage Ring is an amazing combination of swirls and curls of lacy white gold set with an amazing array of 36 little high white diamonds.
Yes, imagine Louis and Clark bushwhacking their way across the American West. There were moments where to go another hundred feet looked like the complexity of the twists and turns on the side of this ring.
Why a Cross Blue Sapphire is the Best
We love blue. We know blue. We live by the blue sea, beneath summer blue skies. Even our business is located on a peninsula called Portland, surrounded by saltwater on three sides. We can feel the blue pulsing with every tide. Even from the rooftop of our building, we can see the open sea. Binoculars show ships coming and going on a blue, blue sea.
We love blue sapphire: it’s bright, brilliant, and amazingly durable as the second hardest gem to diamond – making it a highly wearable gem, ideal even for rings. We love blue sapphire. We love it so much that we’ve traveled to southeast Asia to find first-choice colors. We choose a lighter, brighter blue than most American jewelers because it shows up best under a wide range of real-world lighting conditions. Our blue sapphires look and perform best on sunny summer days to candlelit dinners for two. We want your blue sapphire to dazzle you, dazzle your partner, and everyone in any room you choose to visit. Cross blue sapphires are the best.
