Smelt Quartz?

I found a dealer on Ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260508247278 selling "Smelt Quartz". This looks like another lovely item (enter sarcastic look here) from China.

Can anyone tell me about this?

Thanks,
Kristi

Probably glass.

Hi Kristi,

This material (colored glass) has been around for a few years. It is most commonly advertised as "Cherry Quartz." Occasionally it's called "Strawberry Quartz." It may be seen as beads, spheres, cabochons, and cut into shapes resembling quartz crystals, like the one you have listed above. The source is usually China. Need I say more? ;)

Jan

I just looked at some of those a dealer was passing off as polished brazilian quartz. They are glass. They have air bubbles and flow bands.

Rick
I know I am in my own little world, but everyone knows me here.

I think thre are two clues other thatn they are from China that should tell you to stear away from this. 1-the colour, 2- they are too perfect in the terminations and clossyness. Also I suppose is a third one and that is, they are all identical. I have seen many like this on Ebay and of different coloues and sizes.

Al

Sorry about the typos. I really must proof read my posts first!


Allen,
I have learned to use and cherish the edit button at the bottom of these fields. It has allowed me to clean up after myself many times.
Rock



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2009 12:36AM by Rock Currier.

I first saw these in Tucson several years ago. The Australian dealer selling them said they were made by melting quartz, probably quartz sand, and adding cinnabar and barite. I am not too sure why barite, but the color looks right for cinnabar. I didn't notice if the dealer on Ebay was saying they are natural and genuine, buy most dealers I have seen selling them are selling them as man made.

This is how one of them was listed:

"RARE NATURE CHERRY Red QUARTZ CRYSTAL 60 mm"

Misspelling the word "NATURE" covers their backs/butts. I wonder how many people have taken that word to mean "Natural?" What a shame!

Jan

It's pretty clear these are made by combing quartz and smelt, a type of fish. Hence the name 'smelt quartz.'

Now that's funny.

Or 'smelt' refers to 'melting' as in 'to smelt an ore.' In this case I believe the term refers to the melting of glass (and probably not quartz) followed by the addition of some coloring agent.

Whether from melting or from fish, these 'smelt quartz' are pretty but definitely not natural.

Rock

Here I had though I was getting pretty good at remembering to do that. I guess it`s not only my hair I`m loosing :)

Al

Al,
Welcome to the club

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Possibly, the dealer took a big whiff of the polished glass before before listing? ...just a thought...

Hi Mira Bai, just saw your comments so perhaps I can contribute some info. There is really a word called "smelting". You can look it up in the Wikipedia or World Dictionary.

"Smelting is a heat treatment for separating metals from their ores. The ore, often with other ingredients, is heated in a furnace to remove non-metallic constituents. The metal produced is later purified."

In the smelted quartz, it is my understanding that when adding raw materials such as manganese (Mn) the result will be violet crystal, adding cobalt (Co) will be blue crystal, add chromium (Cr) for green crystal, adding selenium (Se) for the red crystal, add the liquid gold for the gold ruby color crystal, add doped (Er) compared with rose-colored crystal, adding cerium (Ce) yellow crystal, add neodymium (Nd) for light purple crystals. Quartz is in such abundance in China and labor so cheap that they can afford to melt down the crystal, remove all the impurities and add color as they see fit. I mostly find clear crystal infused with red since the Chinese believe that red is a color for prosperity.

I practice Feng Shui and bought myself one of these "smelt quartz" with red infused in it, bubbles and all! The bubbles are from the air trapped in the crystal when it hardened. It brought me a lot of pleasure without breaking the bank.

ZeePea,
If your "red quartz" has bubbles in it, it is more likely man made glass and not quartz.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

You really don't end up with any kind of decent crystals if you just melt the quartz crystals. You can grow decent sized crystals of quartz in hydrothermal bombs (silica dissolved in high pressure, hot water) and could add ppm's of coloring agents.

If they are melting the quartz to add the color then essentially they are creating a man-made silica glass, no longer quartz as I understand it. There is a product that is made for gemstone cutting from melting chalcedony and adding in proprietary ingredients for colors and better optical properties, but it is a chalcedonic based glass.

------------------------------------------------------
Registered Gemologist
Research Gemologist
Rockhound/Cutter/Collector
Club President/Owner

i found a chineese minerals dealers who show mr how this “ smelt quartz ” was made it's a furnace products glass melted with dying agents .sorry i can create a link to this files but if you search on google about cherry volcano quartz or smelted quartz you will found it faster.if you believe they dying natural quartz you're really far from the truth .i buy a cut gem supposed to be quartz with rhodochrosites but when i receive it i see really faster than kind of the same shit .i send a message to the chineese sellers who never anwsered cause of sellers like this i dont trust any dealer from china.i want to find some guys good with computers to help me create a list of all the minerals sellers who's scam people or are too stupids to really know what they offered than customers can avoid them like plagues.you sell a fakes minerals without say it before your on the list.you sell it without know your on the list.not all a message board about fakes just a easy list to read .

you post your stories and some guys evaluated if this must go on the list or not .this kind of sellers have many tricks to fools peoples they ask to friends to buy them stones to boost to the maximum their number of star with a 100% rate of feedback and they refund them after that .i often see dealers offering 10 times the same stone with the same incusions at the same place.they send you menace message saying than they will let you a bad feedback if you let them one and if is not enough they change the name of the shop and restart from the begining.i send a good feedback to one of them and cause he believe i love his shop he send me message to informed me than his shop had change of name .he change 3 times since the beginning of the year.oh i must stop talking about them the will cursed me l.o.l..bye



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2012 10:15AM by Yanick Beaudet.

>:D< I have bought several crystals from ebay-some from China and some from Australia, I did purchase the red ones and am looking forward to receiving them, but I will not add them to my other REAL crystals. Tanks for all the post and information about crystals. I for one appreciate it when people share information to keep the consumer from being scammed.

aah Jake, you stole my pun idea , since I was thinking that something SMELT really bad about these specimens...