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I'm not an expert on sapphires, but since they're my birthstone I've owned my share over the years. My first husband ALWAYS bought be 'natural' sapphires as opposed to lab created ones, because in his mind they were better (whether or not this is true I have no idea...but he didn't know either so he always assumed lab created meant cz which isn't the case). The ones I've purchased myself over the years have been lab created, because they were cheaper more fun things. I don't have pictures at the moment, but I will say that the natural ones were a much darker shade of blue (almost navy blue) while the lab created ones were a lighter, brighter more 'Ceylon' sapphire color. Other than that, I don't know of any differences, but I'm sure one of the Bee's will have more info for you :)
As far as my rings go, some of them I've had for 10+ years and were worn daily for a lot of the time during those years...they've all held up nicely with no noticable scratches or damages (I've never truly inspected them with a loupe or anything, so I can't say for certain). Keep in mind that we bought all of them from chain jewelry stores, and all of the ones I bought were during their specials where you would only spend $30 on a gold ring with created sapphires....not a bad deal. If you were to go to a place like The Natural Sapphire Company (I think that's what it is called??) you would most likely have more options and a higher quality. Hope this helped a little. Good luck!
Lab sapphires are still real sapphires, they are just created in a lab instead of in nature. But I prefer natural. I like the colors of natural better than lab, I like the little imperfections, I like silk, I like the glow of a natural sapphire as opposed to the crystal clear look of lab created.
It's personal preference though, they will both hold up just fine for jewelry.
It's not a center stone, but they were half carat each with two for the ring and two for the earrings, I think for four, half carat tear drop natural ceylon sapphires was 400 or so from a gem and jewlery sale. It looks a more "bluer" in less direct light. 
I don't have a sapphire ring, but my sapphire necklace is lab-created. My husband bought it for me for almost a year ago and it's a really nice deep blue color, I get compliments on it often. And it wasn't too expensive - maybe $150? Anyway, I wear it all the time and there's no wear and tear on it at all. Maybe too soon to tell, but it seems like the lab ones hold up fine (and come in the color you might lean towards).
@Knubbsy-Wubbsy: That is a gorgeous sapphire, pretty much exactly the color I am looking for. Thank you for posting info about it!
Another question, if anybody has any experience, is whether to let the jeweler where we buy the ring order in sapphires for us to choose from, or to try to find our own loose gem and get it set? They jeweler said they can order in 2 stones at a time, and can send back and order more as often as we like until we find the right one, so it's not a "settling" issue, just curious.
@pharmy: In that case I would have him order some in (since you don't HAVE to buy them) and look for yourself also. If you find one you think you'll love, order it and compare...just make sure you can return it.
I don't know the price of these sapphires. But the ones in my anniversary band are lab created with both blue & white sapphires in it:
@pharmy: We tried ordering stones through local jewelers (we were going independant for the actual ring) but DH found better deals through the wholesale show. Can you google if one is coming near you guys? You can negotiate prices and see a good number of lose stones at one go.
This is going to be a picture overload but I ADORE my ring! I told my FH about a year ago that I would prefer a sapphire to a diamond, but we didn't discuss when he was going to propose (although I did know he was going to lol, he's not as sneaky as he thinks he is!) and he picked out the ring with no help from anyone! It's a natural stone and I dont' know the cost of the individual sapphire. I prefer the look of natural because I think that lab-created look too... bright? My stone is very, very dark. In the sun it is clear enough to see through it but inside it almost looks black sometimes. I most love the way that it looks by the light of a fire! I wish I had pictures to capture that. The diamonds around it are very shiny in the sun. Here are wayyyy too many pictures to show you!
Here it is in the box when he first proposed:
And on my finger... i had to squish together my fingers because he didn't know my size so it was a 7.5 and I had to get it sized down to a 6!
This is outside with cloud cover, so you can see here how clear and dark it really is:
And lastly, here are 2 pictures from our engagement session so you can see how it actually looks on my hand/in natural light:
I hope this was helpful!
@Knubbsy-Wubbsy: I hadn't even thought about that! I am leery about buying a gem online, just because any retailer is naturally going to try to represent the gem in the best light they can, which can sometimes border on misleading.
@Mrs.Estep: I agree with everybody else, that is a GORGEOUS band!
Seeing lab and natural in real pictures instead of staged retailer images really gives me some food for thought. Keep 'em coming :)
Also I just wanted to add that my stones have that dark look also. Here are some hand pictures showing it:
@TheHoneyWajr: GORGEOUS ring! :-)
I have natural sapphires in my band. Here is a couple of pictures
We are going the sapphire route as well, and considered both natural and synthetic. The variety of shapes available in synthetic wasn't really what we wanted (we were after a pear - a lot like accorn's actually!) and I also like feeling like our stone is unique, both in color/composition as well as it's cut, whereas with a synthetic sapphire it seemed like there wasn't really anything unique about it.
We went w a local jeweler even though it cost more - most of what they ordered for us (a vivid blue that wasn't navy/overly dark, excellent cut and nearly flawless) was about $2,500 per carat. [ETA: that was for stones in the 2ish carat+ range, they said there was a bit of a price per carat jump at that point, and smaller stones should cost less per carat. Another thing to keep in mind is that a 1 carat sapphire will face up quite a bit smaller than a 1 carat diamond due to cutting styles and density] It was really nice to be able to compare more stones than we would have been able to by ordering online all at one time as they went through two shipments of pear shaped sapphires before we found the one, and there's no way we could have afforded to order that many to compare online, nor could we find that many pears online, and I wouldn't recommend purchasing/setting without seeing in person first. It's really hard to tell from pictures (and even measurements if you're going for a fancy shape) whether a sapphire is well cut without seeing it, and we noticed that some were cut too shallow and were somewhat see through, while others were cut too deep and resulted in a stone that didn't sparkle, and a lot had clear "stripes", dark areas, or other things we didn't like that we just wouldn't have been able to see online.
Pharmy, did you like the one I posted in your other thread? It's lab created so it's a bright bright cobalt blue, I know you said you wanted more of a natural blue so I wasn't sure.. The halo isn't made of diamonds, but white sapphires.
I have a sapphire ring hand ring. it's real because i knew if i got a fake one that it would bother me forever! even if i was the only one that knew it was fake. i find that real sapphires are much darker than the fake ones. i have no idea how much just the stone is worth, though. sorry i couldn't be more of a help there. here's my ring!
I found this on Pricescope.... it was a really good explination of the two..
"Created or synthetic sapphires do indeed have the same chemical composition as a genuine sapphire (which makes it different than a simulated gem), hence they have the same hardness, refractive index, etc. There are many ways to create a synthetic stone and some involve a lot more work and time than others. For my money, I like to use Chatham Created gems (based in San Francisco). They are a bit more than other created gems but they are worth it! All of the cheaper created sapphires I have seen have a fakey, "too brite", glassy look and color. Chatham stones are the closest I have ever seen to high grade, genuine sapphire. And because the have no color-banding or unsightly inclusion and because they have such rich, royal coloring, they look fabulous when paired with diamonds!"
http://www.pricescope.com/forum/colored-stones/lab-created-sapphires-are-they-for-real-t8066.html
Well as I am fresh off the sapphire/diamond ring search I can say that while I was all about natural I honestly couldn't tell a difference between the natural and lab created rings that I saw.
The lab created sapphires were dark, rich blue and looked IMO like natural ones. It wasn't until the person indicated the difference that I knew.
Natural ALL THE WAY!
You can totally tell a difference. We got a natural sapphire from The Natural Sapphire Company. We took my loose stone into jewlers and they would bring out already set sapphire rings to show us. One time the jeweler left to answer the phone, and we sat there comparing the two.. mine looked WAY better. Lab created sapphires look fake.
Here's mine:
It's a 1ct. cushion cut COLOR change sapphire from The Natural Sapphire Company. I wanted a color change, rather than just plain blue. It's a slight color change, that you can notice under certain lights. (Like in the Christmas one.. it's slightly purple.)
Color change sapphires tend to go for cheaper than regular sapphires do (on natural sapphire company) I'm not sure why, because they are more rare.. anyways mine was nearly $700 for the Ct. and we got it on sale for around 6 I think... So it's a little less pricey compared to plain blue sapphires.
@Mrs.Estep: Your ring is a beauty! I'm a little jealous. :)
My wedding band has sapphires in it too, but the look is different. My band is thin, and I can stack it with others if I choose. It alternates a group of 3 sapphires and 3 diamonds all the way around the band. I like it because it's different.
Not sure what the difference between lab created and natural is, but OP, good choice on the center stone!
Heres my lab created sapphire. I love it, my FI had it custom made for my birthday... I wanted a pink diamond but we ended up with a lab created sapphire to save money. This ring was still super pricey though- even lab gems are expensive.
BrilliantEarth.com has some beautiful natural sapphires that are also ethically sourced!
The sapphires in my ring are natural, and they're a darker but bright blue. I was actually pleasantly surprised, because I had heard sapphires can look black, but these are pretty clear blue in most light. The second picture is about as dark as they get. Most of the time they look like this.
I have a real sapphire. We were set on getting a lab created one because from reading online, they are in fact genuine sapphires just made in a lab and a lot cheaper. No problem for me! But the jeweller that made the ring (recommended by FI's aunt who had used him many times) said real ones have a much nicer colour and strongly recommended them so FI decided to trust him on it and now I have a natural sapphire!
We haven't tried to compare this stone to lab ones. I do remember seeing a lab one in a store that at first I thought was a beautiful rich shade of blue but when I went back another day it actually didn't look nearly as rich as in my memory. As a note though, real sapphires skew to the darker colour spectrum unless you pay more. The stone within FI's budget was apparently darker, and the jeweller had a much nicer stone but that cost a fair bit more (I don't know exact numbers, and I don't want to know!) - FI went with it anyway because we both wanted a nice blue.
Now would I have been as happy with a lab one? It's possible we could have found a high quality lab created one that could compare, we'll never know. We are extraordinarily pleased with this natural sapphire though, the colour is stunning.
I can't imagine trying to buy a stone without seeing it in person, the colour can vary sooooo much and all the online pictures I've seen on jeweller websites do not look at all like the colours I've seen in stores.
Mine are actually lab created sapphires over natural, because natural sapphires tend to look dark, and he wanted a vibrant hue. He was afraid the stones would look dark, like black diamonds (nothing wrong with that, just not the look for me- I like color :)
To us, the lab created just seemed a bit more lively (they are very very bright blue in the light!) and they set off the diamond beautifully.
My fiancé got this for me for Christmas, it's lab created, I'm wearing it on my ring finger while I wait to get my engagement ring back from getting its new setting. It is really pretty, he got it at Helzberg for like $350!! Lab created sapphire with white sapphires surrounding it.
My jeweler said that it's only the more common natural sapphires that have the dark color. More rare, expensive natural sapphire will have the same lighter color you see in many lab stones and neither will ever look black. Also, I'm pretty sure you can get lab created in any shade you like, you just have to look for a supplier that will do a variety of blues -- labs often show the brighter color because this matches the look of the highest-quality mined stones.
People might think the brighter color looks fake because they aren't used to seeing very expensive, high-quality natural sapphire. Have you seen Princess Di's ring? That beauty ain't dark! Personally I think all shades are lovely, I like pink sapphire as well, it's such a gorgeous stone! So it just comes down to personal taste of mined vs lab, and also budget.
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sorry pic didnt work the first time
Hi ladies,
I am dead set on a sapphire as the center stone in my e-ring and would really like some opinions, and if possible, PICTURES!, of some natural vs. lab-created sapphires. Also, if you wouldn't mind divulging the price range (of the sapphire, not the whole ring), that would be wonderful too, though I understand if you don't want to.
The jewelers that we have spoken with have opposite views. One says that she thinks, from her experience dealing with warranty and repairs, that the natural sapphires hold up better. I know they are more expensive, but love the look of it not being "perfect".
However, the other jeweler said that lab-created sapphires look just as nice as long as they are done well, and hold up just fine. I want a nice, deep blue color that shows off the light, so I'm wondering if lab is going to be the best option price-wise? I've seen really bright blue lab sapphs, and they look fake and cheap to me. However, the more deep blue ones looked very nice and "natural", and didn't freak me out with their perfect-ness.
Any help would be appreciated!