Turquoise is it real

Turquoise as it gets popular over the years has had many substitutes that come in to fool the public into thinking it is genuine turquoise. In the past I have seen many of these fake or dyed imitations used. These many substitutions I will try to list.
# 1-- Dyed Howlite
This a very soft white stone that has a very dark black webbing pattern that when dyed blue the black webbing stays black and is very convincing . To determine whether what you are looking at is real or dyed howlite look very close at the blue and see if you see it sparkling just a little when you roll it back and forth in good light to catch a reflection of these little specks. Howlite will sparkle a little, also dyed howlite will have the exact shade of blue throughout the entire individual stones. Most dyed howlite is used for beads and is not cut for cabochons or stones. The beads that are tumbled and dyed are smooth and have very little if no popcorn or the natural shape that a turquoise nugget would have. I have never seen any used in inlay work.
# 2--Plastic
Plastic of course will look for the most part plastic. I can not describe all the different plastic stones that have been created over the years, but I will try to help you determine some of them. First the stones will all look exactly alike for the most part. The color will all be the exact shade of blue and the matrix will have the exact shade of color. Jewelry that uses plastic stones for the most part will be glued into the piece rather than bezel or prong set. You can also use heat to see if you can burn just a little area under the stone. Heat up a pin to red hot and touch on the back of the stone in an area to not hurt the jewelry piece or the stone. Smell the area and see if you smell a plastic smell.
# 3--Composites
This is a stone made from any material that is put together using a binding that will hold it together from either pressure or a polymer. These can be very clever as you can introduce many natural materials into this composite such as iron pyrite crystals. Iron pyrite also known as fools gold is found in some Natural turquoise .Also other natural stone can be introduced into this composite to look like a natural stone matrix. I have seen even this material when made to have been formed in very tiny particles that are dyed on the outside of each particle black and when pressed together looks just like spider webbing. But again look for the stone to show the exact same shade of blue or black throughout the stone.
# 4--Dyed Magnesite
Now here is a very real threat to today’s buying of turquoise. The Chinese have become very good at dying stone and there is a stone that when comes out of the ground has a formation that looks very much like turquoise nuggets. This stone is Magnesite, and when dyed looks just like very good grade turquoise. With the popularity of beads reaching a huge demand market today. Turquoise is one of the most popular stones to buy and use. Unfortunately a lot of these foreign dealers mislead their customers into thinking this very cheap and readily available stone is turquoise or stabilized turquoise. I have personally met many of these dealers and asked what the material they were selling as turquoise is. And they say to me this statement.--On Receipt from China that is what it says, and they show me it says Blue turquoise, White turquoise ect .As if to say to me as long as the receipt from China says Purple turquoise then they have a right to sell it as authentic turquoise. Then to further the problem,these uninformed and gullible dealers take this low priced imitation of turquoise back to their bead shops and sell it for the real thing. The jewelry designers are buying this cheap imatation turquoise and putting it into their designs as the real thing. I have been to many of these bead shops myself and have not found but one in my long search that correctly labels this imitation turquoise for what it is. “ Dyed Magnesite “ The bead shop I found is in Albuquerque ,New Mexico, Thomason Stone Supply.Unfortunatly this dyed magnetite is dyed other colors and sold for Green Turquoise, Blue Turquoise, Purple Turquoise, Yellow Turquoise, White Turquoise and even Orange Turquoise. Now Folks come on even a Brain Dead person when looking at other stone would have the very basic of common sense to see that there must be something phony in all that. Turquoise is primarily blue and green and some rare in white. Green is somewhat rare. Now when you see a whole wall full of all these extremely rare colors and don’t think something is wrong. Come on.!!!!! ,PURPLE or ORANGE TURQUOISE !!! I see this fake stuff on ALL of the metaphysical uses of turquoise for its energy properties that I have come across. Makes me think that these people must not be as connected to stone energy as they would like to think they are. I have even found a huge American Indian Turquoise dealer or so HE claimed he was American Indian, that has been selling this fake and low priced magnesite for
for the real thing. I found a person that had bought close to $60,000 dollars of this fake stuff from him. He labeled it as coming from several of the rare and hard to find American mines. He sells at a lot of the large popular shows and the pow-wows. Again People what does rare mean, If you find someone with a lot of rare turquoise and just happens to have a good story Beware. You have to have knowledge and experience to deal in this rare stuff. If it looks to good to be true then maybe it just is. Rare does not come in volume and YOU are probably not going to find any except in extreme rare occasions, and it will not be at a large show with a large quanity of it in offered for sale.
Now how does one tell if what they are looking at is real and not magnesite. Well for one thing Volume .If they have a wall or table full of all the colors of turquoise that have never been then that would be a huge clue. Another clue, the price. Real Turquoise is not cheap. Even Stabilized Chinese turquoise is not anywhere near as cheap as the magnesite. However some dealers jack the price of dyed magnesite up. Most dyed magnesite if you look at several things will show. The nuggets will be very consistent in look. The blue color is very much the same shade of all the nuggets. Magnesite does have a black or dark matrix, so when dyed is very convincing. The nugget formation looks very much like the real thing. But if you look very close, most of what I have seen there is white showing on the tips of the surface. Most of this dyed magnesite nuggets show the white color that is just under the surface of these stones. Of course if you break one in two you will see the white just under the surface also. If the dealer has a quantity of these strands and nuggets look for any broken ones in the bunch and see if you see the white color that lies just under the surface. Of course get it in writing that what you are buying is the real thing.
Copyright 2010 @ James Saunders