FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Garret]

Hello. I'm new to the forum and have a some questions regarding the authenticity of some mineral specimens on eBay. I'm not new to collecting minerals, but I'd still consider myself far from an expert. I have an extensive "budget" collection, some pieces I've had since I was a kid, with all sorts of well-known and uncommon minerals from about $5-$65 a piece with most being in the $15-$40 range.

So far, I haven't really had trouble telling real from fake and natural from dyed minerals. Natural formations are the easiest to tell, but even polished stones and slabs have been easy for me to know what I'm getting, up until I started looking into "Ocean Jasper".

I bought a couple specimens on eBay from Chinese sellers, and they are still on their way. I browsed some more and some things looked off to me, so I'm worried I might have bought enhanced or fake stones. I can't get pics of my own until they arrive, but I'll link a bunch of similar ones. Some look suspect to me, and some look natural, some I'm 50/50 on.

Supposedly, this "jasper" is actually a form of chalcedony, found mainly in Madagascar, often on beaches. I know that part is legit, but it's the specific specimens I've ordered and others on eBay I'm concerned about. Some sources say it's just more colors of polychrome jasper.

If anyone could help me identify whether these are real, fake, dyed, or a mix, it would be much appreciated.

If anyone can help, thanks in advance.

[Garret]

Looks like the website won't let me link anything due to some spam filter. Sure helps me :/. Guess I'll have to wait until mine actually come in and photograph them.

[John S. White]

Ocean Jasper can indeed look like it has been dyed because it is so varied. I have about a dozen pieces of it in many forms. Just for fun I am attaching one of my specimens even without seeing yours.

[James Catmur]

Our anti-spam filters only allow links written in a very specific form

For example: https://www.foro-minerales.com/forum/index.php, is a link within this forum so can be typed in directly, but had it been an external link you would have had to have added it as:

http(:)//www(.)foro(-)minerales(.)com/forum/index(.)php

Read this page for an explanation

https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=1941

We get a huge number of people trying to add links to all sorts of strange sites, so use this format. As moderators, we then check the link and if it is ok normalize it.

[Garret]

Thanks for the information, I appreciate it. I'll read the guidelines for links and try to figure out how to get it working. As for the jasper, great picture and nice piece. It helps a bit, and I know it can come in a lot of colors and patterns. Still, some of them almost look too good to be true, like white with bright red, green, and blue all in one sphere.

Worst case scenario I don't quite figure out the links and I'll just wait for my two to come in and take pics. Thanks again to both of you for the help, and anyone else who might post.

[lluis]

Hi, Garret, List

Personally, I think it is a blatant fake...

With best wishes

Lluís

[Michael Shaw]

Hi Garret,

Since the FMF Forum is a non-commercial website, it does not permit links to other commercial websites, so the eBay link you provided has been deleted. If you want information regarding the authenticity of the jaspers, I suggest that when you receive the material you purchased, post a photo on this thread and I'm sure someone will chime in with an opinion.

Thanks,
Michael

[Garret]

I understand. Based on what I gather so far, one of the ones I ordered has a good chance of being fake or enhanced, with some very bright contrasting colors in certain areas. It's also from the same seller as the "obvious" fake. The other seems to possibly be real. I will take pictures when I receive them, but in the mean time, one simple question: How common is purple as a color in real ocean jasper?

I ask this because the more legit looking of the two I ordered is mostly brown, with purple and white spots in a loose orbicular type pattern all over. The purple is sort of a dulled pastel amethyst color, it doesn't look bright or necessarily dyed. The purple is dark around the borders of the orbicular spots and light in the middle, sort of interspersing with the white.

Any of that sound legit?

[Garret]

Alright, so my specimens arrived yesterday, and surprisingly, it seems I may have worried for nothing. Up close, both look real. I'll try to get some pictures to confirm. The colors are more subdued than the pictures with perfect lighting suggest, and look real to me.

One is mostly brown with a bit of red and some white and purplish spots. It looks 100% natural, even the purple is kinda like you'd find on polychrome jasper.

The other one is mostly light blue with white, but it has brownish yellows, dark greens, and reds in certain areas. On close inspection the druze areas are natural looking and hard to fake. The colors of the spots look natural like what would typically be made by iron oxides and other minerals, they aren't overly bright.

I'll try to get a couple pictures when I get a chance, but I'm pretty certain they are legit.

Thanks again for the quick responses and help when I first posted the thread.

[John S. White]

For heavens sake wait until you receive the specimens so you can photograph them. Otherwise you can speculate all day!

[Garret]

I was just describing how they look AFTER receiving them. I said I had already received them I'm going to try to upload some decent photos when I get a chance. If you'd have read you would have known that, so please cool your jets, dude.

[Garret]

Attempting to post pictures.

[Garret]

Second specimen

[Bergur_E_Sigurdarson]

You do know you can have multiple photos in a single post, right?

Judging by your initial description, which failed to show us the photos of the vendor (no link is needed, just save from his site, as they have been bought by you it should be fine for such a question) ....it sounds most likely that your vendor is just guilty of massivley exaggeerating the colour saturation of his products.

This is very common, and even a lot of photos of very nice specimens I see on the internet have been given a HDR treatment and oversaturated the colours to a point that one would struggle to recognize the piece in real life.

I hope you are just happy with what you got, although this sort of material has no interest to me as it is cut and polished.

[Garret]