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Al,
It doesn't make a difference whether the sapphire is naturally occuring or man-made (synthetic). The two materials are identical in their chemical and physical properties. If anything, synthetic sapphire is stronger (more durable, but not harder) than the natural, because it is usually inclusion free and thus not subject to internal strain.
It's important to distinguish between hardness (resistance to scratching) and toughness (durability - resistance to breaking). Sapphire is extremely hard - 9 on the Mohs scale, but it is only good when it comes to toughness, thus it can shatter. The Mohs scale is not an absolute but a relative one - in fact, at 10, diamond is 10,000 times more scratch resistant than sapphire.
That said, there are not many commonly used items that will scratch a sapphire crystal.
C
: I read somewhere that a saphire crystal can
: only be scratched by a diamond, or an emory
: board with diamond particulate embedded in
: it.
: Am I to understand that man-made materials like
: a carbon-steel blade knife cannot scratch
: it's surface? Or is the Moh's hardness
: scale; which rates a diamond at
: "10" and a saphire as "8
: 1/2" (I think that's right,) referring
: to naturally-occuring minerals only?
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