Swiss gem-testing laboratory SSEF has issued a Trade Alert focusing on sapphires from a deposit at Bemainty, near the small town of Ambatondrazaka in Madagascar.
According to lab Director Michael S. Krzemnicki, the sapphires have Kashmir-like visual appearance and are characterised “by a subtle and fine milkiness, which results in a velvety blue colour typical of top-quality Kashmir sapphires”.
Krzemnicki says that “many of these new sapphires are accompanied by gemological reports describing them as being of Kashmir origin”. SSEF has recently “tested a sizeable number of such ‘Kashmir-like’ sapphires submitted by clients, and ranging in weight from 5 to 50 cts, we have concluded that many of these gems of so-called Kashmir origin actually originated from the new deposit near Bemainty/Ambatondrazaka in Madagascar”.
Some of these stones, Krzemnicki says, “are being purposely introduced into the gem market with fraudulent claims of historic Kashmir provenance”.
