What is heat treating, and do I want my sapphires to be heat treated?
Heat treating is when gemstones are heated at very high temperature for anywhere from 3 days up to 6 weeks. This process can clean up silky / foggy stones and deepen the colors, but it can also sometimes fracture a nice stone or introduce a color in a stone that was not seen naturally. Many people love the deep color sapphires, most do not realize that these deep colors are rarely natural. The natural Montana sapphire is generally light in color. Heat treating is usually a personal preference, since deep color sapphires do sell better, but a beautiful natural stone can be worth much more.