Pink Sapphire Engagement Ring

It took the diamond industry a long time to establish the diamond engagement ring as an essential part of the culture of marriage. The De Beers consortium in fact mounted a concerted decades-long advertising campaign, beginning in the late 1930's, to associate diamonds with love, courtship and marriage, under the now familiar slogan "Diamonds are Forever." The campaign was probably one of the most successful feats of social engineering in the 20th century.

More recently, however, the diamond ring tradition has begun to weaken. Many couples have begun to look seriously at colored stone engagement rings as an alternative. There appear to be several reasons for this. One reason is the publicity surrounding "blood diamonds" -- diamonds mined in a war zone and sold to fund armies. Another reason is that some consumers have become aware that diamonds are actually not rare and that the high prices are maintained by a cartel that controls the supply and distribution. Yet another reason is that colorless diamonds don't display much individuality; they are in fact commodity products that are produced by the millions. Unless you have a great deal of money, it is rather difficult to purchase a truly unique diamond engagement ring.

Unheated Blue Sapphire from Tanzania

In addition to these reasons, one cannot discount the effect of the famous blue sapphire and diamond engagement ring that Prince Charles gave to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981. His brother, Prince Andrew, continued the trend when he presented a pigeon blood ruby and diamond ring to Sarah Ferguson upon their engagement in 1986. Consumers now had both establishment and anti-establishment models to move them towards colored stone engagement rings.

Burmese Ruby

Since engagement rings need to be very durable, the most popular colored gems are sapphire and ruby, since they have excellent hardness (9 on the Mohs scale) and no cleavage. Other good choices include spinel, aquamarine and some of the garnets. Some very popular colored gems, such as tanzanite, are not a good choice for engagement rings due their lack of durability.

First Published: October-14-2009

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