FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[bob kerr]

here's a photo of the Colombian quartz specimen I bought at $200 a kg.

bob

[Fiebre Verde]

[Pierre Joubert]

Fantastic thread Elise! I have always wanted to acquire 'man made' quartz specimen/s and am glad to see that some one is selling them. Regards :-)

[John S. White]

I am one of those who found the repaired amethyst unsettling. It is all well and good to say it is okay if the specimens are appropriately labelled, but we all know that there are those who will not do so. In fact, I attended a small mineral show nearly two years ago where a dealer was selling very large sprays of the porcupine-like quartz, up to 10 inches or more, and they were not labelled as lab grown and he refused to tell potential buyers that they were not natural. But to return to the repaired amethyst, I would have been eager to examine it closely. One thing I have observed is that the striations on prism faces of lab grown quartz crystals are diagonal whereas those on natural quartz tend to be horizontal (at right angles to the prism edges). I would want to see if the striations on the repaired amethyst are diagonal or horizontal.

[Elise]

[Elise]

[lluis]

Dear all

By sure, as Mr.White said, all that could be hydrothermally grown could be repaired. But as Mr. White said, do not label it is not exactly ethic in my understanding...
I have diamonds synthetic, and rubies, and a silver and a gold...
Three first sold me as synthetic. Last, as a palladium natural gold, that, things of live, has no palladium (tested) and is man made....and sold in Munich as man-made some years ago...

So, synthetics/man made are nice, no doubt. Just that this work in a honourable world....that, sadly, is not our world.... So many crooks selling synthetic as natural....

Repaired is repaired, cut is cut (some sold so, or so is said to me....), man made is man made... Just that not all those are properly labeled.

By the way, profit is great and not so difficult. Or not so difficult for me (chemist...).
Long time? Yes. But if you only need to wait.....

With best wishes

Lluis

[Jamison Brizendine]

Vladimir and I talked at our club meeting (Mineralogical Society of Cleveland) about his experiences at Tucson, people’s reaction to his case and some more of my observations.

I was aware of the upcoming article in Rocks & Minerals, but I withheld that information, because honestly….I wanted it to be a surprise. I haven’t seen the rough draft of it, but I will mention that it will come out before the end of 2016, probably very soon.

Vlad wanted me to let everyone know that the “Japan Law Twins” are not actual Japan Law twins; they are an attempt to making one. So far he has been unsuccessful at getting the correct angle needed for it be a Japan-law. Our club has dubbed them “Vlad Twins”, but yes these are some of my favorites too. It is still unclear what conditions are needed for a Japan-Law twin to actually occur in nature, and Vlad has never seen a Japan-Law Twin actually grow in the autoclave.

In Elise’s picture 20150220_Syn_Quartz_6613a96, you can see one of the seed crystals very easily, which actually is a very thin plate. It is running diagonally where the top crystals randomly generated across that plane.

In Elise’s picture 20150214_Tucson_6605a96, I believe the green inclusions in the twin are caused by loose acmite. I believe that is caused as a byproduct of the caustic solution and the steel autoclave.

My mother inquired if my specimen (the broken Guerrero), had won any awards. I explained to her that the quartz cases were non-competitive cases, but apparently if “Most scary!!” is an award, I guess it won that. Vlad told me that a lot of dealers (names withheld, but the majority whose names I had recognized) mentioned that they were “afraid”. Are we talking about fear as in walking in a haunted house with fake zombies covered in blood, that pop out at you of every crevice imaginable or fear as in my irrational fear of the leprechauns in “Darby O’Gill and the Little People”?

Wasn’t there, just last month, a thread about gypsum crystals, which I certainly wouldn’t term “natural” (https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=4083). I didn’t see comments that these would instill a new “Age of Fakery”, nor did I see comments that these gypsum clusters could evoke fear and terror into the hearts of mineral collectors. I have no doubt that John White’s example of his “Unscrupulous Mineral Dealer” would try to sell these gypsum crystals as natural ones too. There are just some dealers who will do anything dishonest to get a buck…

Again, I wanted to note here the only other successful attempt at “healing” a broken quartz was an heavily fractured Arkansas quartz. After about five months in the autoclave, the terminations did in fact “regrow”, but it didn’t “repair” or “fill” the fractures.

Vlad also has mentioned to me that any coatings on a crystal, like natural iron stained coatings or those weird looking “Aqua Aura Quartzes” would dissolve in an autoclave. I was massively disappointed that this would happen, as I really wanted to see a half “Aqua-Aura” bottom and a perfectly clear top!

Remember, that you can’t stick any random quartz in and expect it to “regrow”. It must have minimal matrix and it must not have openings or inclusions that could potentially destroy the entire integrity of the specimen, like the majority of rutile included quartz crystals from Brazil.

Here is another synthetic quartz I own, but this one takes the “fakery” and pushed it to the next level, has it has been artificially irradiated to boot.

[Elise]

[alfredo]

Jamison wrote: "... the “Japan Law Twins” are not actual Japan Law twins; they are an attempt to making one. So far he has been unsuccessful at getting the correct angle needed for it be a Japan-law. Our club has dubbed them “Vlad Twins”, but yes these are some of my favorites too. It is still unclear what conditions are needed for a Japan-Law twin to actually occur in nature, and Vlad has never seen a Japan-Law Twin actually grow in the autoclave."

Confirming what Jamison wrote above, I know a materials scientist in Japan who has spent many years researching synthesized quartz crystals and, from many many thousands examined, he has never seen a single Japan-law twin spontaneously generate in the autoclaves. He does occasionally manufacture true Japan-law twins, up to 5cm or so in size, but always starting with a tiny natural Japan-law twin, around 3mm or so in size, as the seed crystal.

[Scott LaBorde]

For those interested here's a great video that talks about how synthetic quartz crystals are grown, along with many fine examples of the Russian specimens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQOSPwodWY
(link normalized by FMF)

[Pete Richards]

[Elise]

[James Catmur]

Wow, great fun and really interesting. I can see why they liked them. Even though they are synthetic I could give them a home!

[pierres-gemmes]

It's very beautifull and squares are perfect. Congratulations ! :)