[Rockhounds] Chinese Crystals on E-Bay

[Ted Kowalski]

Chuck:
>From the ebay pics I can't tell if it's quartz or glass. Collectors are
interested in big beautiful crystals, but it always seems to me that a holy
grail for quartz crystal collectors is a crystal with absolutely perfect
points. Quartz crystal facet edges and tips are extremely prone to chipping
and breakage. I went through a number of your ebay seller's crystal pictures
and I couldn't find even one chipped tip or facet edge. Yeah they had bases
that looked rough, but every one had long sides with good edges and a
perfect point.

Yeah, it's possible that the seller has access to extremely well cared for
crystals from the miners hand to the photo set... I, personally, wouldn't
bet on it. My haphazard seat of the pants guess is that if they are real
quartz, they have been helped, a lot. From the looks of some of those
crystals they might've been helped from massive quartz into crystal shapes

One possible way to check is to examine every facet table on your crystal.
It takes a steady mount to polish perfectly flat surfaces right up to a
sharp crystal edge. If any (or all) of your crystal's facets are rounded
(check also towards the edges) than it is likely the crystal is shaped via a
grinder polisher setup. Check the edges under magnification. Please
understand that crystal edges could be rounded from tumbling action, but
this is a different look than sharp crystal edges with a slight rounding
just before the edge. 

If every facet is flat with no rounding anywhere, then it could be a real
quartz crystal and you did extremely well. If not, well it sure will make a
pretty weight or rainbow diffractor and it's still cheap for either one. 

Good Luck!
Ted Kowalski
Fredericksburg, VA 22407

-----Original Message-----
From: rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com
[mailto:rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com] On Behalf Of Charles Baran
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 3:38 PM
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors
Subject: [Rockhounds] Chinese Crystals on E-Bay

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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