FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[lluis]

Hi, Peter

Agreed completely with you.
And, even respecting deeply Alfredo, "art" is a thing that should be disclosed. If not fully disclosed, well, maybe living in a place where fakes are very common, and to ask for is a need, I simply think that seller is not honourable.

Maybe my fault, because I also collect coins, and there fakes are so common (sadly!)!

With best wishes

LLuís

[Peter Lemkin]

[kristy]

Greetings ! I’m a newbie to the forum! Glad to be here and see all the incredibly talented and well educated mineral experts on here.

On the subject, I remember years ago as a newly inquisitive rock
“Collector” I fell hard for the man made specimens! I agree with the previous poster about these needing to be labeled as such. I avoid man mades now, but it always surprises me that shops sell them as if the great Mother Earth spat them from her loins. 😂

[alfredo]

"Maybe at shows, show operators should make clear to those with tables that all non-Natural and/or artificially produced items should be so labeled."

...Most shows I participate in, that is indeed written into the dealers' contracts! Enforcement of that rule however seems to be rather lax or intermittent. I suspect that at some shows there are few if any mineralogists or advanced collectors on the organizer's staff, so they don't even recognize the faked stuff. And at the really big shows, with almost a thousand booths, an "inspector of fakery" would have a hard time even looking at most of the booths. There are some internet venues for "naming and shaming", like the Scammology group on Facebook.

[Pierre Joubert]

I appreciate all the comments. Here are a few more, what I consider fakes or 'altered'. A few of these have featured on another post but, I share them again for the sake of this topic.
Another disturbing occurrence is the grinding of damaged facets to attempt to conceal damage. When one buys a lot of specimens, you do not always have the time to check whether every facet on your specimen is natural (you do not expect it not to be).

[Pierre Joubert]

I had an interesting call from Rob Smith, who read this thread and also suffered some loss purchasing fake specimens. He sent me pictures of Shattuckite concretions that are fake. We also purchased some and I wondered about some of them but couldn't be sure. Bruce Cairncross also confirmed that they are indeed fake. How they are made is a topic on it's own.
Here are a few specimens of our own. Thank Goodness we have not sold any fakes yet:-)

[Heimo Hellwig]

Hello Pierre, thanks for the information. I also have a few of these specimens which I actually posted on this forum, since they are part of my collection.
These fakes, I think, come from the Kunene region - Kaokoveld. Regards.

[Pierre Joubert]

[Pierre Joubert]

Another fake specimen, supposedly from Kaokoland, but in truth, a part was naturally grown in Kaokoland and the rest 'completed' in Mr. Con man's home lab somewhere in Namibia.