Diamond & Colored Sapphire Chain Bracelet 18k Yellow Gold

18k Yellow Gold Paper Clip Chain Bracelet. Three Oval Colored Sapphires, 1.65 carats. Two Baguette Colored Sapphires, 0.32 carats. 1.97 carats total. Diamond accents. 7.5 inches.

The paper clip link takes its name from the elongated oval, and that shape is the whole reason the chain reads as modern rather than traditional — open, architectural, weight without bulk. Here the line is interrupted five times: three oval sapphires and two baguettes, set as stations along 7.5 inches of 18k yellow gold, with diamond accents between them.

These are colored sapphires, which is the part most people get wrong. Sapphire is corundum — the same mineral species as ruby — and blue is only its most famous expression. Trace iron and titanium produce blue; chromium pushes the color toward pink; iron on its own gives yellow and green. Everything in the family that isn’t red enough to be called ruby is a sapphire, and the trade calls the non-blue ones fancy sapphires. A bracelet that sets several of them together is showing you the range of a single mineral, which is a more interesting thing to wear than one color repeated.

There is a practical argument too. Corundum sits at 9 on the Mohs scale, and a bracelet takes more abuse than anything else you own — desk edges, door frames, car doors, the underside of every table. Sapphire does not care. It is the colored stone I recommend without hesitation for a piece that lives on your wrist.

Diamond Tales curates fine jewelry meant to last a lifetime and carry a story.