A fancy sapphire is a sapphire of any color other than blue, such as yellow, orange, pink, purple or green.
In more detail
Red corundum is ruby, not a fancy sapphire. Discoveries in East Africa and Madagascar in the 1990s brought fancy sapphires wide recognition.
On a grading report
Labs put the color before the word: for example, yellow sapphire or pink sapphire.
Related terms
- Sapphire: Sapphire is corundum of any color other than red. The word alone means a blue stone; other colors take a color word, such as yellow sapphire.
- Padparadscha: Padparadscha is a sapphire of soft pinkish orange to orangey pink. Its tones are pastel and its saturation low to medium.
- Pink sapphire: Pink sapphire is corundum whose color is pink rather than red. Chromium causes both its pink and the red of ruby.
- Color change: Color change is a visible change of a gem's main hue between daylight and incandescent light.
- Corundum: Corundum is the mineral species made only of aluminum and oxygen. Its red variety is ruby, and all its other colors are sapphire.