1970 colour-change 23ct sapphire pendant, Romantic Revival

About this piece

Colour-change sapphire is a genuinely strange trick of mineralogy — the same stone reading as deep violet-purple under one light source and shifting to royal blue under another, an effect caused by how the stone's trace elements absorb different wavelengths of light. The oval stone here is lab-grown, roughly 23 carats, held by six double-claw prongs within an openwork frame. It shows the same colour-shifting effect as natural colour-change corundum, just without needing to find a stone that size occurring naturally, which essentially never happens.

The frame itself carries a pierced geometric border done in a Romantic Revival style, borrowing visual cues from earlier design periods without committing fully to any single one of them — a decorative approach that had a real moment in early 1970s gold jewellery. The pendant hangs from a fine 9ct gold cable chain, diamond-cut for extra sparkle along its oval links, and both pendant and chain are fully hallmarked for Birmingham, 1970.

Condition notes

Very good vintage condition. Minor surface wear and tiny abrasions visible under 10x magnification, consistent with age and the nature of a vintage gemstone. The chain and clasp are in excellent working order.