21 December 2007 – 11:04 am
A new visitor (hi!) asked about how to tell the difference between the baked citrine (heat-treated amethyst), and genuine citrine. I’ll post photos as soon as I can, but in the meantime I think I am familiar enough with them now that I can describe it.
20 December 2007 – 8:51 am
When I said in an older post that I had never handled natural citrine… that turns out not to have been, um, entirely accurate. Since I didn’t know what citrine was, I had a few in my keeping and didn’t know it. In fact, one of them is a chipped, included point that [...]
19 December 2007 – 8:22 am
I’ve been into stones and crystals again lately, and realized suddenly that I don’t have a jeweler’s loupe to look at them with. This is a little odd considering that I’ve been playing with rocks since I was 6. But whatever.
If you’re intrigued by the idea of opening new vistas of time-wasting [...]
A lot, although not all, of the smoky quartz on the market has been created or “enhanced” through radiation. I found several sites describing this, but this eBay review was the only one I could find with photos of irradiated and natural pieces side-by-side (about halfway down the page). Generally, a very dark [...]
I think my favorite of the fake crystals I have found so far are the “naga eye relics” on eBay. Well, that’s the simplified name. Usually they are “RARE naga eye thai buddha lingam healing relic amulet,” in any order. Samples here and here. In the descriptions they tend to claim [...]