Fake or Real black quartz crystal?

Alfredo Petrov is right in saying that all smoky quartz is irradiated, most times by nature, but I insist on my comment that most (or maybe all) artificially irradiated smoky quartz is made out of colorless quartz, normally coming from metamorphic rocks, and showing a more homogeneous chemical composition, whilst the bulk (in terms of size and tonnage) of natural smoky quartz come from pegmatites (and the main producer area in the world is the pegmatite province of NE of Minas Gerais, Brazil), and on this environment smoky quartz has a more variable amount of chemical impurities (Mg, Al, Fe, etc) what results in at least slight color variations inside the crystal when it is submitted to natural radiactivity inside the pegmatite, so the presence of lighter and darker internal zones, or changes from yellowish-brown to orange-brown to near black-brown suggests that one specimen is more likely natural than irradiated.

Luiz

Luiz,
In my humble opinion, you are correct.
Inconsistencies could help in identifying natural, verse artificially irridiated quartz.

For what its worth, there are quite a number of Chinese dealers on ebay now who look "reputable" because they have a few thousand feedback. If you look back at their feedback, the first thousand are so are from Chinese buyers. Most of these scammers are selling quartz from anywhere with all the appropriate key words attached to them to make people look at them. 99% of the stones they sell come from China or Brazil, but they claim they are from under locality under the sun. And many of them are foolish. There is one guy aximi and or gem-crafters (same guy, same hand n photos) who puts pictures of "the mine" from where the quartz came from, and he has the same picture on auctions for crystals from two different countries.....or shows a picture from "Bor Quarry" which is a cliffside with holes in it and no quarry to be found. Ebay basically encourages these dealers to do what they want, and has no interest in trying to stop them because they profit from them. When in doubt, don't buy anything from Chinese dealers on ebay regardless of their feedback.

It looks Chinese and if it's from China it's probably smelted quartz which is nothing more than colored glass. A good rule of thumb, is if it's cut and polished from China don't buy it.

that's correct! i have a smokey quartz crystal charm bracelet - the beads are shinny but not faceted. there are visible flaws in some beads and only the light of the sun can reveal it's natural reddish to dark brown color. :D

I bought 2 pieces of tiger eyes. One from china and one from the state on eBay are fake. Both of them have wood inside. If anyone wear a cheap tiger eyes from eBay that I know of, they are fake and don't know yet.

I see these ebayers ALL the time on ebay. It is VERY suspicious when theyre selling their item for .01 cent on ebay and 15$ shipping across continents. VERY SHADY! Selling their "crystal" for nothing draws red flags..it basically means they are a HUGE dealer of these, which could mean their products are fake. Thats just my 2 cents.. im a HUGE ebayer. Ive had lots of success from china though. If you want some SOLID ebay user ids from other countries PM me.

I have a smokey twin that is around 12in. x 14in. collected in lake george colorado I would sell you, but also there are many miners in my area pulling out good real smokies everyday.

Interesting thread.

I went to SMAM 2012 where, shall we say, Quartz in all qualities and sorts was not in short supply. I saw one display of "Citrine" that intrigued me. That these were smallish, naturally formed, Quartz xtls seemed beyond doubt at a glance, But all of these xtls were 'burned' smoky-black at the tip of the termination and also at some of the other facet junctions. These were being sold (very modestly priced) as natural Citrine.

So what had been going on here? A botched attempt to produce Citrine from colourless Quartz through over-irradiation? Or an attempt to produce Citrine from Smoky Quartz through heating? My guess would be that it was a result of an irradiation process; it seem logical that, in either process, colour change should first occur where the material has the least depth, this in turn producing opposite effects with the alternative processes, Only the irradiation process could give/leave the burned tips, The effect (and deduction) is not unlike considering an Alaska Bake that had been flashed with a blowtorch just before serving, to partly carbonise the tips of the meringue casing.

Natural or artificial irradiation? Again a guess, my inclination would be to artificial radiation, 'high and fast' seeming key to producing this blowtorch effect.

Anyone else look at this and wonder? Sadly, I took no pics.