Cambodia — verified dealers & sourcing guide

Cambodia holds two distinct places in the gem trade. Pailin in the west was for a century one of the great sapphire and ruby districts of Asia, and Ratanakiri in the north east is the world reference for blue zircon. Both names still carry weight, even as production has thinned from its peak.

Pailin

The basalt fields around Pailin, near the Thai border, supplied dark blue sapphire and ruby from the 1870s onward, and the town gave its name to a recognised trade type. Alluvial digging continues at modest scale, with stones moving through Pailin itself and across the border into the Chanthaburi cutting trade. Pailin sapphire tends to a deep, slightly inky blue that responds well to careful cutting, and old stock stones circulate with a provenance premium.

Ratanakiri

The zircon diggings around Banlung produce the reddish brown rough that becomes the electric blue zircon of the trade after heating. The colour is stable and the treatment universal and accepted, but it must still be declared, and the Ratanakiri name on a listing should mean the stone actually came from the province rather than serving as a colour description.

Treatments and disclosure

Cambodian sapphire and ruby follow the standard heat conventions of the region. Blue zircon is heated by definition; honey and colourless stones may be natural. Written declarations, and reports on more significant stones, keep these distinctions honest.

Buying Cambodian stones

GemsVerified verifies the dealers below for legitimacy, certification practice and disclosure standards rather than certifying stones. The listed houses span the Pailin corundum trade and the Ratanakiri zircon business; compare declared treatments and origins before making contact.