[Rockhounds] Chinese Crystals on E-Bay

[betdav97 at aol.com]

? Kevin,
? Funny, quartz does have a conchoidal fracture, and can have bubbles
included in the crystal, some of which may contain water. The synthetic
crystals balls from China ave been pretty free of bubbles. It kind of sounds
like you may have bought a real crystal. However, if you are familiar with
glass bubbles and quartz bubbles, they are not the same. 
Dave


-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Winter <therebelcountry at gmail.com>
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 4:00 pm
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Chinese Crystals on E-Bay



I actually purchased one of these on ebay.  I never got around to
checking refractive index or anything (plus it weighs about 5 pounds),
but i'm not 100% sure they are actual quartz.

The specimen i received had a small chip on the bottom showing a
concoidial fracture.  In addition, there are many fine bubbles that
form a hazy shadow you may be able to see in the pictures.  I made
sure i picked the cleanest one listed, and while the bubbles are
small, they worry me.

I'm by no means a rock expert (an enthusiatic and inexperienced
amateur collector maybe), but i suspect it may be glass.  I tried
scratching the bottom with some various materials, including some
rough zircon i had laying around, but the results weren't distinct
enough for me to say that it was definitely scratched, or only
slightly scratched (plus, i've never actually done a scratch test).

Just remember that i am recalling a 5lb-ish clear "quartz" crystal i
purchases from ebay and shipped from china, so mine may be different.
After i received it i went back and double-checked - the auction never
actually mentioned quartz, just "crystal".

Hope this helps.

I'd be willing do re-do a scratch test if someone can describe how to
do it correctly.  I have a refractometer (among other random
chinese-cheap gemologist tools), but never really used it and i doubt
i could fit the specimen on it (and i'd rather avoid chipping off a
hunk if possible).

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 3:38 PM, Charles Baran <kcbaran at arczip.com> wrote:
> Friends:  If you get on E-bay,  input  quartz crystals  in the search
> feature you will come up with a whole BUNCH of hits.  Many of them are big,
> very nice and very cheap. You can tell the Chinese crystals because most are
> being held in a person's hand with an outdoors background.   Has anyone ever
> bought these or have any ideas or feed back as far as quality, buying
> safety, etc? Thanks?
>  Chuck Baran
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