SAPPHIREKashmir closed a century ago; fine colour stays scarce
The Kashmir deposit was discovered after a landslide in 1881 and ceased significant production by 1887. Everything in existence came out of the ground in that brief window, which makes Kashmir sapphire one of the few gem materials with a genuinely fixed, non-renewable supply. Nothing new enters the market, only stones changing hands.
What sets the material apart is a velvety, slightly sleepy blue caused by microscopic rutile inclusions that scatter light evenly across the stone. Fine certified Kashmir material is quoted from $50,000 to beyond $200,000 per carat, with auction results approaching $280,000. Ceylon and Madagascar produce excellent sapphire in quantity, and unheated stones from those sources are sound buys, but the Kashmir character has never been reproduced.
Around 95% of sapphire traded commercially has been heated. Certified unheated stones trade at two to five times heated equivalents, and the premium concentrates in fine colours; an unheated report on mediocre material adds little. Price also accelerates sharply at the three and five carat thresholds, where fine untreated stones become dramatically scarcer.
SOURCE
Kashmir, closed 1887
Worked for roughly six years. Supply is fixed and cannot increase.
THE TEST
Unheated only
No heat, no diffusion, no lattice treatment, certified at source.
MARKET
About 5% unheated
The great majority of sapphire in trade is heat treated. Untreated material is the exception.
STOCK TRADEEnhancement, explained and declared
Almost every coloured stone you have ever seen in a shop window has been enhanced in some way. Heating sapphire and ruby is among the oldest practices in the trade, dating back centuries, and it is accepted worldwide: it deepens colour and clears internal silk in material that would otherwise never be cut at all. Roughly 95% of sapphire sold anywhere in the world has been through it.
Enhancement is not a flaw. It is a normal, stable and permanent part of how coloured stones reach the market, and a well-enhanced stone is a sound purchase at a sound price. What matters is that the buyer knows exactly what they are getting, which is why every Stock Trade listing states the process, the certifying laboratory and the country of origin.
Where CGEMX draws its line is between enhancement and substitution. Heating and oiling change how a natural stone presents; diffusion and lattice processes introduce colour that was never in the material, and laboratory-grown stones are not mined at all. CGEMX does not trade either, at any price, in Stock Trade or Vault Trade. Every stone on CGEMX came out of the ground, and its listing states exactly what was done to it.