Replies to post #1009 on MineCore International (fka MCIO)

[ghcnj]

"Most are small and low grade."

Not according to what I have been reading.

"For it is here that Madagascar’s finest sapphires are said to be found."

http://www.ruby-sapphire.com/madagascar_ruby_sapphire.htm

[bigtuna177]

Really? I am curious about your expertise that you would know this. According to this articale:

The tiny village of Ilakaka, Madagascar had barely 40 residents before 1998. Then, a large deposit of sapphires was discovered along a nearby riverbed, and caught the eye of some Thai businessmen in the gem trade. Word got out, and Ilakaka swelled to tens of thousands of residents - the center of a sapphire boom, today the source of nearly 50% of all the sapphires in the world.

*** I am not sure how 50% of the market of the world and they are low grade? DO you have some where it shows that they are low grade coming out of this region? "Most"....JMHO~!

[bigtuna177]

Really? "and low grade"?

Madagascar is considered the latest major gemstone-bearing region in the world. In 1998, a new sapphire field containing sapphires of the highest quality, as well as a number of other types of precious gemstone, was discovered in south Madagascar in Ilakaka about 230 Km. northeast of the port city of Toliara.

The deposit of sapphires in south Madagascar, due to the quality and the size of the deposits, is considered as the greatest find since the discovery of sapphire in Sri Lanka and Burma.