FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[trtlman]

I am a bit confused, I was led to believe that bismuth crystals can only be created in a laboratory but while shopping for crystals today a dealer told me that only the colored minerals are lab grown and silver crystals are nature grown. Could someone please help me out here? Thank you.

[Urza]

I'm sorry but that us not true. Silver bismuth crystals are simply crystals the have had the oxide layer removed. Natural crystals of bismuth look nothing like lab grown crystals. They are rather bland looking in nature and resemble more of a grey rock with minor crystal structure.

I know because I own bismuthguy dot com

[trtlman]

Thanks, I didn't even know crystals appear in nature and now I know what they look like for if someone else tries to pass off lab grown as real

[Joaquin Montoro]

Here you have a natural piece to compare...

[alfredo]

Note also that real native bismuth crystals are very rare in nature, coming almost exclusively from a couple of mines in central Europe. In recent years I've seen bismuth "crystals" from Bolivia on the market which were really bismuth CLEAVAGES (bismuth has perfect cleavage); I've never seen a true crystal from Bolivia. And alleged bismuth "crystals" from Australia and China have been just cavity fillings, so the flat "faces" one sees are the casts of neighbouring quartz faces, etc. Caveat emptor, as the Romans used to say. ;))