FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Fiebre Verde]

I have heard so often the same comment from many respectable dealers from all over the world “Colombian emeralds are the most commonly faked of all mineral specimens”.
And since I mostly cherish (and buy) Colombian emeralds in matrix, these comments also serve as a daunting reminder of the risks I take when I go on a hunting trip to Colombia.

I am by no means an expert in fake emerald specimens but I thought I could share some pictures from a recent trip I made down there.

One of the mineral dealers I met showed me a couple of fake specimens he had recently bought on the local market.
I have been doing business with this dealer for years now and he is known to openly sell fake specimens to some customers who do not mind buying man-made products as long as they are cheap and spectacular.
Not sure if these people, in turn, make a business by selling the fakes as natural… but that’s another story.
Wanted to double-check but I didn’t have a UV light at hand (as most glues fluoresce) and I certainly didn’t want to break my relationship with an honest dealer by soaking his specimens in acetone (which I didn’t have anyway!).

Some of these fakes are genuine pieces of art and one can be easily carried away when being offered such specimens in the mining areas or even in a nice and cozy office in Bogota.
In such situations there are a few common-sense tips that can help a bit
1) We all know how the old idiom goes – if it “looks too good to be true”, it probably is – The very nice specimens seldom reach the formal Bogota market. For sure, they never reach the informal markets in the various mining areas.
2) Look for improbable combination and settings. Much, much easier to say than to do. For that, one needs to know the expected matrix/mineral combinations for each mining district/area!! If you don’t have that niche experience, find somebody who has (Again here, much easier to say than to do!). This might help you saving lot of $$$$.
3) If naked-eye observation is not conclusive, look for glue using UV light. Of course the ultimate test is to soak the piece into acetone (or any powerful solvent) for a few days. Not something you can always afford to do before closing a deal :-(
4) Follow your intuition - If you doubt at first sight, don't rush. If you can't make any conclusive tests, don't buy.
No rock(et) science here...

Don’t get me wrong – most of the dealers I met in Bogota are honest.
But the vast majority simply don’t know if the material they have is fake or not. And they can’t really be blamed for that as their main business is by far faceted stones.
So even when in doubt, all specimens are natural and it’s up to the buyer to challenge them!

So yes, there are many, many fakes around, and not just in the Colombian market.
But with a bit of patience and some common sense rules, you can already avoid the easy mistakes.

Gérard

PS: Sorry for not providing the accurate dimensions - these specimens are about 10-15cm across.
Also I could not resist posting the most famous fake emerald specimen in the world. It's a very rough montage mixing crystals from the Eastern and the Western belts.

[jorgedavid]

[Bob Harman]

FIEBRE, Thanks for posting your pictures of the faked specimens. It always helps to know what is real and what may be cleverly faked, especially when the $$$/EuEuEu changing hands may be big!
While I don't collect this stuff and personally need not worry, I do look at hi end mineral examples at all the shows I attend. One thing that I routinely see in these faked emeralds, aquamarines, tourmalines, beryls, etc is that the crystals usually sit a bit too perfectly into the surrounding matrix and too much into the center of the example, a bit too evenly displayed and too evenly surrounded by all the other crystals. If the whole specimen looks a bit too good to be natural, it usually is.....Your pictured examples all show these phony conditions with the attached emerald. Only then do I look carefully for any glueing of the crystal onto the matrix. CHEERS.....BOB

[Fiebre Verde]

Jorge, I think both spellings are accepted - no doubt Moctezuma is the preferred spelling in Mexico!

The Moctezuma emerald is a fake in the sense that it's a montage combining many crystals from different Colombian locations. These natural crystals were "glued" before even the glue existed.

I doubt it was meant to look "natural". It was just a symbolic piece among the incredible amount of wealth Moctezuma presented Cortes.

Gérard

[jorgedavid]

[Fiebre Verde]

You can contact me directly by using the "pm" button located on the left-hand side of the message area.

[Fiebre Verde]

[minsur]

Hello Fiebre Verde
Thank you for sharing such valuable information!
Most fakes (and there are MANY;) offered at shows look worse;)
Although I agree, the one in your first photo is a "serious case", not that easy to spot.

Some time ago, I was told a local rumor by a -as I think- quite knowledgeable person, that today's fakes of really high$$$$ specimens were produced by using laser technology.
Cutting precisely fitting holes or other spare rooms into the matrix, where crystals / "canotillos" would be "implanted" . Hardly detectable, as, of course, non-fluorescent and acetone-resistant glue is used. A side business for dentists?;)
Can you confirm this rumor or would you consider it to be more kind of a "mineralogical urban legend"?

[Fiebre Verde]

[Fiebre Verde]

I saw more fake specimens this morning.
No doubt that it's a flourishing market, especially around the mines which are visited by more and more tourists now that the roads are better and the safety conditions have improved.
Most of the fakes I saw are pretty rough even for an untrained eye.

[minsur]

Wow... a nice and seductive one! Hope, you did not buy it;-))

No chance to recognize without soaking it in dissolvent.
Nevertheless, the not readily explicable contact(?) at the bottom of the crystal looks a bit strange.
It worries me a bit, that such a near to perfect manufacturing job is done to create a specimen of comparatively low value. That is even more amazing than the top quality of the fake, I would say

[Fiebre Verde]

[Fiebre Verde]

Another interesting fake specimen I saw today.
This one baffled me as I was distracted by the unusual shape of the beryl crystals perched in a vug - specially the longest one.
When I asked the dealer (who also happens to be a good friend) for the price, he finally confessed it was a fake.
In this case, soaking the specimen in acetone wouldn't help much as the adhesive used is cement.

Apart of that, very aesthetic 'specimen' with gorgeous crystals :-)

[alfredo]

At least it's a REAL emerald, even if glued ;))

I once got a fake emerald made with great patience by a village boy in the Andes mountains. He spent hours rubbing a chunk of green glass (from the bottom of a wine bottle) against a lump of cement and a quartzite boulder, until he had a crude hexagonal prism, which he then laquered. Surprisingly, it looked quite real! (until you inspected it closely)

[Fiebre Verde]

[Pierre Joubert]

Hi Gerard, as with some fake specimens we bought from Brandberg, experience tells you that something is just not right, even though it may be very difficult to see exactly what. Normally one can see the area just around the base of the glued crystal/s are disturbed and of a different colour than the rest, but these 'artists' are very good at even hiding that, by strewing fine bits of common minerals, from that area, on the glue to hide it. Some of these 'artists' know the minerals better than most because they work with them year in and out. Even so, it is extremely difficult to copy nature.

[minsur]

You name it, Pierre:-)

Fiebre Verde, cement...
maybe we should change by the time from acetone and the other dissolvent with the inexpressible name and the even more horrible smell, to cheap and ecologically sound vinegar;-))

[Fiebre Verde]

[minsur]

Our collector's universe is sometimes a bit funny and strange...
There are people paying tens of thousands, sometimes even hundreds of thousands $$$$
for epoxi-multi-glued-together and sandblasted Tourmaline specimens.
In my humble opinion just very nice handicrafts, or "artesania", which do not have really much to do with a naturally grown mineral anymore.
But everybody seems to like a truly genuine Emerald on matrix;))

[Fiebre Verde]

More fake specimens from downtown Bogota.

Beautiful specimen with gorgeous crystals from Chivor but very clumsy fake.