The Secret to Selecting
The Best Blue Sapphires
The owner of Cross Jewelers shares his thoughts on blue sapphires, how he selects sapphires, and what makes our sapphire collection different from most other jewelers.
Tide’s Edge
Blue Sapphire & Diamond Ring
Somewhere at the edge of an August beach of your childhood, a tide pool shimmers in the summer heat, its cool, clear water surrounding your ankles. Beneath its surface, starfish, sea urchins, and tiny crabs dream mysteries of the deep.
As a kid I spent my summers on a white sand beach on the coast of Maine. There was a tidal river with saltwater marshes at one end of the beach, and cliffs, rocks and tide pools at the other end of the beach with a quarter mile of white beach sand between. From my youth I have walked the tide line many hundreds of times feeling the pulse and flow of rise and fall, wind and waves, and spent hundreds of hours in the tide pools at the cliffs.
Tide pools were bath tub to swimming pool-size, walkable, wadeable, sometimes swimmable, real world aquariums with starfish, sea urchins, limpets and lady slipper shells, kelp and seaweed, fish, crabs, and baby lobsters. They were places of endless fascination. We often stayed so long we would be there as the tide came in and flooded into our water world with cold, fresh Atlantic saltwater.
The Tide’s Edge Ring is the advancing edge of the tide line as it sweeps in across sand beach and rock lined shore side pools. We place a colored gem in the center with two accent diamonds on either side. Our two favorite gems are blue sapphire and green Maine tourmaline. Then we have a world of additional color possibilities – purple, orange, yellow, and red, in other gems.
Some gems are already mounted and ready to ship anywhere in the USA, shipping is always free.
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Cross’ Passion for Blue Sapphire
Most Jewelers say the darker the better,
We say the bluer the better
People often comment on how blue our sapphires are, how brilliant and pure the color. We believe in blue, pure true blue. True blue is a medium toned blue. True blue is not navy or inky dark. True blue is bright and brilliant. True blue sapphires are shades of blue you can relax into; they calm, comfort and soothe.
Why a Cross Sapphire is the Best
We love blue. We know blue. We live by the blue sea, beneath summer blue skies. Our business is located on a peninsula called Portland, surrounded by saltwater on three sides. We can feel the blue ocean pulsing with every tide. 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 is bright, brilliant and is amazingly durable. As the second hardest gem to diamond, it is a highly wearable gem, ideal for rings. We love blue sapphire… we love it so much that we have 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 everything from sunny days to a candlelit dinner for two.
We want your blue sapphire to dazzle you, dazzle your partner and everyone in any room you visit. Cross’ blue sapphires are the best.
Chosen One at a Time
Most jewelers prefer dark sapphires because they are easier to source and easier to match. Our sapphire jewelry starts with the selection of the individual gem. We choose gems one at a time, and evaluate them under different lighting conditions to find the best performing sapphires. The result is a gem which is bright, blue, and brilliant – everything you want in a sapphire. This process takes more time and it results in the best, brightest, and truest bluest sapphire jewelry. The jewelry is then specially crafted to fit the gem.
