With those two caveats in mind, now you can appreciate sapphire clarity on its own terms.

There are two categories of flaws, or identifying features, as we like to call them.

External Flaws: (Blemishes)Which are scratches, pits, nicks and abrasions. These are almost always minor flaws and will not harm the quality of the stone.

Internal Flaws: (Inclusions) Are cracks, crystals, negative crystals, silk, fingerprints, halos, cavities, chips and color zoning. Almost all of these will look like their names indicate. The main ones to watch for are cracks and chips which affect durability, and large crystals that not only block light, but could also be a stress-fracture. Another specific inclusion to look for is silk. This naturally occurring wavy feature will shrivel into a little white dot when heat-treated for color enhancement. So if you see silk, you could be looking at a sapphire that came by its color naturally, making it far more valuable.

Rather than judging each flaw individually, The American Gemological Laboratories (AGL) and The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) have devised grading systems which account for all of them on an overall scale of clarity.

The AGL determines clarity with the naked eye and their scale ranges from FI (free of inclusions) to EI1-3 (extremely included) with several levels in between.

The GIA works with 10-power magnification as well as the unaided eye for their scale which works down from the top quality VVS (very, very slightly included) down to Dcl (declasse.) Again, the number of steps from top to bottom is numerous.

Many jewelers have formulated their own grading scale (such as A to AAAAA) just ask where a stone on their scale lands on either the AGI or GIA standards.

You can examine a sapphire for clarity while you are inspecting the color over various backgrounds, under different lighting, from the top, bottom and sides, and under magnification.

With these valuable tips under your cap, you never have to be unclear about clarity again.

Answer to quiz: a