Mineral Fakes

What to look for &What to do when you find

one

What constitutes a Mineral Fake?

• The specimen is not the handiwork of Mother Nature

• The crystals did not grow naturally• The crystals were glued into place• The crystals were dyed, irradiated, coated, etc.• I personally believe that modern specimens

matched up with old labels are fakes too.

Why would someone make a fake specimen?

• Enhance the perceived value of a rock• A way to use nice crystals and pass them off as

exceptional specimens• A way to essentially steal from unsuspecting

buyers • Personal reasons…

Some distinctions need to be made

• Repaired specimens are not fakes• Restored specimens are not fakes

• As long as the Repair and/or restoration replicate the original specimen.

• As long as that information is noted on the specimen label

How do you know you’ve been had?

This thing looks perfect! Man, I am going to buy it!

Wow! What a great deal I got!I can’t wait to get a better look at this

when I get home under my microscope!Ah Crap!

The first thing to realize is that we all buy and likely have bogus minerals in our collections. The best dealers in the world have a drawer full of them, including me, and all museums have them too.

They are EVERYWHERE!

Your Most Valuable Tools for Fake Specimen Indentification

HandlensA Microscope

A UV light sourceExperience

Now for some examples

“Heliodor” from Tajikistan

Aquamarine that gets nuked goes yellow

Wulfenite from Tsumeb

Hard not to see the glue and crushed matrix which was added in

Fluorapatite from Germany

Every single crystal was glued into place with a mix of glue and crushed matrix

Elbaite from Elba Island

Flakes of feldspar added to the glue. Under a scope it hurts to look at it.

Proustite from Peru

The crystal is literally hanging by glue and little pieces of matrix…

Nice Cuprite from Mashamba

Except that the big crystal is glued into place…

Euclase from Zimbabwe

I gotta clean that iron oxide out! Hmm..Nothing seems to get the FeOxide out!

Oh…It’s because it is all glue!

Exceptional epidote from Pakistan!

Except for one thing…

Gold from Arizona

Every piece of gold is a little piece of leaf gold glued to the matrix.

Why is the gold only on one surface?

Gold from Mexico

Nice crystal but what is all that shiny stuff around it? Hmmm…

Even the little spots of gold have been glued in place!

Helvite from Fujian, China

Oh… that is why it was so cheap…

Frankenstein rock from Korea

Looks pretty good from here. But why two different colors of fluorite?

Pale violet and pale green fluorite… Two colors of fluorite is only rarely seen in nature on the same rock

And oh yeah, the scheelite was glued in too.

Manganite from GermanyLooks like an exceptionally fine rock

if you ask me!

I sure do wish all the terminations were complete.

More important, I wish that the crystals actually grew there instead of being glued there…

Fluorapatite from Austria!

There’s even another crystal on this rock!

I gotta get all that debris away from the crystal so it looks killer!

Except… All that debris is glued into place to look like matrix…

Gold from Russia…

This specimen was cast and then soldered to some other gold bearing matrix. An atomic absorption test proved that the alloy was copper and silver with gold while the other visible gold was void of any copper.

My gift to Scott Werschky

Pretty decent job if you ask me!

Ok – so now you have found your mineral fake. What’s next?

• Contact the dealer and let them know.• Be nice about it and keep in mind that most

dealers were likely been duped before you.• Every dealer worth his or her salt will gladly

refund you your original purchase price.• If there is a dispute go to a non-partisan 3rd party

to get a 2nd opinion.• The vast majority of the dealers out there are

honorable people and will stand by their name.

Any Questions?