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.
Real citrine, in my experience, looks exactly like regular clear quartz, but with a golden yellow tint. In affordable specimens, the color tends to be pretty light, but it is definitely there. Brightly-colored natural specimens exist but are very rare and so are priced accordingly. The morphology is also like regular quartz – this is important. The rough points are shaped more like clear quartz points, not like amethyst points. You may have noticed amethyst usually forms short, angled points (I’ve seen this shape called “dragonstooth”) and tight clusters. Also, if you look into a natural citrine, at its internal structure, that also is like regular quartz – it might have some inclusions, fractures, clouds, etc. but not the “crackle” or “sparkle” look of heat-treated amethyst. Finally, the natural citrines I have seen all have the color spread uniformly throughout, without large white patches.
By contrast, heat-treated amethysts are often bright gold, with lots and lots of internal fractures that make them seem to sparkle. In many, but not all, of them the color is so deep that it borders on orange to brown (in other words, they literally look burnt). Many of them have large zones of white mixed in. Looking for these characteristics can help you determine if tumbled or polished pieces are fake or not. Unfortunately, with very small tumbled pieces or cabs it might be hard to tell a fake if it happens to be a clear, pale one. If you see a rough point or cluster that’s amethyst-shaped, however… that’s a giveaway.
The last time I checked just a few days ago, almost all of what was being sold as “natural citrine” on eBay was not. It’s unbelievable how much fake crap gets sold on eBay, but that’s another post. I have also found a few metaphysical dealers selling what are clearly heat-treated amethysts as “natural, not heat-treated.” Whether they are really dishonest or have been taken for a ride by their suppliers, I don’t know. If it’s the latter I wish they would learn something about rocks if they are going to sell them. If it’s the former, what I think of them isn’t fit for polite company.
There aren’t a lot of sites where you can see photos of fake and real side-by-side, which is why I am planning to put up another one here once I can take the photos.
Here’s one site: Color Altered Crystals. I appreciate their offering this and the photos are gorgeous, but since they are of elestial-structure points worthy of museum displays (again, gorgeous…), they’re just not that representative of what you are likely to see.
Another is: The Vug; Fakes, Forgeries and Misrepresentations… You may have to scroll down to get to the entry on citrine. Note the classic amethyst dragontooth and cluster forms he’s photographed. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here on other types of mineral fakes as well.
I want to note that amethyst is one of my favorite crystals – that’s part of why I feel so strongly about this. They’re beautiful as they are and ought to be left alone. By the same token, real citrine deserves to be rightfully recognized again – it’s another very beautiful stone.