How can you tell if a product is the genuine article?

Well, if you are a jeweler and have a trained eye......sometimes a visual inspection can be helpful. A jeweler also has available a specific gravity test or the refractive index.

Hmmm.......as the normal Joe out there does NOT have these tests available, the honor system is really the only hope you have when purchasing on Ebay.

But.... just a little bit of insider knowledge goes a LONG way sometimes!

So let's start with what is out there.

So many stones in a variety of fabulous colors. Some natural......some dyed....some heat treated.....some stones that are man made and fabricated to look like the real deal. One of the  most common stones to be imitated is turquoise. I have a rare passion for this stone. That it can come from the earth in such amazingly vivid colors just fascinates me. But high quality is very expensive. Humorous but sad is when you see someone tag turquoise as.... AAA flawless with beautiful black matrix. Well......matrix is a flaw in a stone so it cannot be both. True AAA grade flawless turquoise is a sight to see. A velvety azure blue stone with not a mar on it. (You won't see these stone for less than $100's per carat.)

Now that we have had a reality check........when considering a rosary that says it is genuine turquoise and they are selling it for $10.95....... now you might stop to wonder. The closest to real it might be is Chinese turquoise. And even then, genuine Chinese turquoise is more than that. What has flooded the market in recent years is a stone called magnesite that can be dyed to look remarkably like turquoise. But it is NOT. There are even certain kinds of jasper that also look like turquoise! (I.E. African Turquoise is NOT turquoise, it is jasper.)  If possible, and if you are seriously considering in investing in a real turquoise rosary.......google and look at the different varieties and the different mines here in the U.S. After a short time you will begin to see the patterns in color and matrix that are unique to different areas. It's not rocket science.......it is merely developing a general eye for the stones. Ask the seller questions.....detailed questions. And ask them (if they make the rosary themselves) to send an extra bead that the rosary is made from. You can then crack it open to see if the color runs through evenly. If it does not, it is dyed and more than likely NOT turquoise. If you still have concerns, you can even take this bead to a local jeweler and get their opinion. Good turquoise is an investment, no two ways about it! When spending that kind of money, you would like to get what you are paying for!

Too many stones are being presented as something that they are not, or more than what they are. Look, learn and reference from other sites on the Internet. Heat treated sounds harmless enough, but in reality, it can do much more than alter a stones appearance. It can often degrade the hardness of the stone. Tiger eye is often tampered with to get the red effect and the blue effect. It almost NEVER comes out of the ground looking like that.

Fossil stone is just what it's name implies. But it is also almost always dyed. Many of the ...new' jades' are not jades at all but are varieties of serpentine that are dyed a wide range of colors.

Does this make them less pretty? No, of course not. But it does lessen their value, and buyers should always find out about this if the price seems a little excessive.

Ask questions folks!

If the seller is honest and running an ethical business, they should have no problem answering any of your questions.

There is NOTHING wrong with selling many of the stones I have listed.........but they should always be listed for WHAT THEY ARE.

It is a different world now........shopping out in the ether at the touch of a button. It can be easy to get scammed.

But it is also easy enough to click the button and educated yourself on what you are wanting to buy. It's out there, use it!

Good luck!

Kate