0.39 CT TEAL MONTANA SAPPHIRE™ ENGAGEMENT RING — STELLO SETTING, 18K YELLOW GOLD

This one genuinely earns the "A word on..." treatment — Montana sapphire has one of the best stories in American gemology, and the specific teal color is the one collectors chase. Worth doing it right.

Pricing: Straight application of the +52% baseline to the original $1,100 gives $1,716 — but that puts this piece below the generic sapphire Stello at $2,195, which doesn't reflect reality. Montana teal sapphires, especially untreated ones, trade at a premium over generic heat-treated blue sapphires because they're American-mined, ethically traceable end-to-end, and often naturally beautiful without treatment. My read is that the original $1,100 price was undervalued relative to the generic sapphire pricing, probably an oversight.

Three options for you to pick from:

• Straight baseline: $1,700 (keeps the ratio to the old pricing but leaves the piece undervalued)
• Parity with generic sapphire: $2,195 (fair, but doesn't honor Montana's premium)
• Montana premium: $2,295 (my recommendation — $100 above the generic sapphire reflects what Montana teal actually is)

I'll write it at $2,295 below. Easy swap if you want a different number.

Also: "American Mined™" and "Montana Sapphire™" appear as trademarks in your original listing — I've preserved them. And I'm writing this as untreated because teal Montanas specifically don't respond well to heat and most reputable sellers leave them raw. If your supplier has confirmed heat treatment on this specific stone, say so and I'll swap the disclosure.

0.39 CT TEAL MONTANA SAPPHIRE™ ENGAGEMENT RING — STELLO SETTING, 18K YELLOW GOLD

Featured in Refinery29, "30 Mind-Blowing Engagement Rings Made in NYC"

$2,295 · Ready to ship · Size 6.5

A star caught on the finger — in alpine water.

Stella is Latin for star — the oldest symbol we have. Before clocks, before maps, before written language, people looked up and steered their lives by points of light that had guided everyone who came before them. A star is what you wish on. What you keep your word by. The thing that stays still while everything else moves.

This ring is built on a simple, unshowy idea: at the center, an American Mined™ Montana Sapphire™, 0.39 carats in a 4mm cushion cut — the color of an alpine lake photographed at high noon, somewhere between blue and green and refusing to be either. Set low in a slim 1.5mm band of 18k yellow gold. No halo, no pavé, no side stones — just the stone and the metal and the warm-cool contrast that makes both of them stronger.

A word on Montana sapphire

In 1865, gold miners panning the Missouri River kept finding small blue pebbles in their sluice boxes. They dismissed them — they were looking for gold, and the stones were the wrong color for anything they knew. It took thirty years for someone to send a sample east. In 1894, Tiffany's head gemologist George Kunz opened a cigar box of them, valued them at thousands of dollars, and Montana became the only place in the United States with commercially significant sapphire mining. It still is.

Montana sapphires are their own creature. Where Ceylon and Kashmir produce the deep velvet blues that dominate the commercial market, Montana runs cooler, paler, and weirder — teal, alpine green, sky blue, soft violet, peach, pink, color-shifting stones that read one way in daylight and another by lamplight. Most are mined by small-scale artisanal operations under strict US environmental regulation, the whole supply chain traceable from the riverbed to the ring. No blood diamonds, no conflict anything, no question marks.

The teal is the signature color — reflecting, as a Montana poet might put it, the alpine lakes the state is shaped around. And unlike nearly all other sapphires in the trade, teal Montanas are usually sold untreated. Heat treatment doesn't improve them; the color is already there, locked in the stone the way it came out of the ground. This one is that kind of stone.

At 4mm and 0.39 carats, the stone is small but declarative — and significant in Montana sapphire terms, where most gem-quality stones come out of the ground under a carat. Against yellow gold, the teal reads warmer and more saturated. It's a quiet piece of American geography held on the finger.

It is a minimal ring for a reason. A promise doesn't need to be decorated. A star doesn't need to be louder than itself.

Every stone is natural and ethically sourced. The Montana Sapphire™ is untreated — its color is the color the earth made. The 18k yellow gold is solid and recycled where possible. The setting is built using old world techniques by hand — the same methods that have defined fine jewelry for centuries.

Made in New York. One piece, one wearer, one story.

Ready to ship This exact ring is finished and waiting — size 6.5, as pictured. It ships as shown; Montana sapphires of this color and size are sourced individually, and this is the one.

The details

• Metal: solid 18k yellow gold
• Center stone: 0.39 ct teal Montana Sapphire™, 4mm cushion cut, untreated, American Mined™
• Band width: 1.5mm
• Size: 6.5 (this piece, resizable)
• Handmade in New York
• Featured in Refinery29

Make it yours Every Vena Amoris piece begins as a conversation. If you'd like this design in a different size, metal, or stone — or something entirely your own — email us. There are no traditions when it comes to love.