Knowledge Centre

How Colour Affects Value

Colour is the single most important factor in valuing a coloured gemstone, and it is also the most nuanced.

Colour is the single most important factor in valuing a coloured gemstone, and it is also the most nuanced. Gemologists describe colour through three qualities: hue, tone, and saturation.

Hue is the colour itself - blue, pink, or red. Tone describes how light or dark that colour appears, and saturation describes its intensity. The finest gemstones strike a careful balance: saturated enough to feel vivid, but never so dark that they lose their brilliance.

This is why two sapphires of identical size and clarity can carry very different prices. Learning to see these differences - to really look at a stone, rather than simply at its certificate - is one of the quiet pleasures of collecting.