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Fakes & FraudsFake chrysoprase

30th Aug 2010 05:52 UTCYvonne Jiew

Hi! I just thought I would share some information with all of you. Recently I was in China and was at the bordertown between China and Burma in a small city named Ruili to look at the jade markets. I ended up speaking to a trader in one of the shops so happened during the phase of our conversation, he asked what we did. I told him that we owned an online business in Australia and traded in jadeite, nephrite, chrysoprase and opals. When I told him about chrysoprase, he scoffed and told me that there was so much of it around China and you can buy a cabochon for as little as $0.50 USD. I must admit - I was truly amazed. Where would they source the chrysoprase from I wondered...?

It then so happened that the shop keeper had one in his "collection" and insisted on giving to us to illustrate how worthless this piece of "chrysoprase" was. I am always a sucker for interesting stuff and thanked him keeping in mind that when I get back to Australia, that I would take a look at it carefully.

I placed the chrysoprase under a chelsea filter to see whether I could spot anything that might seem a little odd. After all the colour of the green was more like jade and was highly translucent. As soon as I out it under the chelsea filter, it clearly indicated dyed work and an RI testing done later showed that this cab was actually chrome coloured quartz!

It is amazing that in all these years that we have been buying jade, never once have I stumbled across a fake chrysoprase until now. I have heard all these rumour circulating around about dyes impregnated into quartz and weirdly enough as we always cut from rough, I didn't really think too much about it.

However, recently as good rough is becoming harder to find and prices of gem grade chrysoprase are becoming more and more valuable and sought after, it is a no wonder in retrospect the amount of fakes out there!

I wrote a small article on this topic on my website: please feel free to browse and thanks!

http://www.rockandmineralsupermarketaustralia.com/aboutchrysoprase.htm

30th Aug 2010 08:01 UTCRock Currier Expert

Some years ago I used to travel to China a fair bit to buy specimens and other stuff for my business. One of the companies I visited in Hong Kong was a Chinese man who had purchased a chrysophrase mine in Australia, or at least claimed he had and he had big pictures on his wall showing bulldozers working the mine. He had thousands of strands of nice chrysophrase beads, many of superb quality. The lower grade material he sold or worked a trade with another Chinese dealer whose factory I visited in China. He showed me a sea container about two thirds full of chrysophrase rough. A lot of it was not all that great, but they were using it to make carvings of frogs on rocks etc.

3rd Oct 2010 13:06 UTCYvonne Jiew

You are quite right Rock Currier. There is a Chinese presence in Australia and they own one of the two mines in Marlborough. Most of their rough is sent to Hong Kong for processing and they are very legit. Infact, they own one of the largest chrysoprase mines in the world.

And that is the norm. The good stuff is often made en cabochon or in beads and the not so great quality often carved. However, every now and again, you will see good A grade carvings on the market and believe me, it is not cheap.

However, the seller that I was talking about was clearly selling fakes. Luckily, this one was easy to spot but the others are not as easy. Nickel salt in white chalcedony or quartz is seen passed as Marlborough chrysoprase.

Before we opened up our business, I was keen on DIY jewellery making and as a result bought a handful of chryoprase cabochons from a couple of people online. Without getting myself in too much hot water, one of the companies that we purchased from, we later found out (throught RI testing, etc) that we had actually bought simulated chrysoprase which we found out after receiving the package. The colours were all the same, all 50 cabochons. I guess that should have been my first clue....

At that time..I guess I had also no real idea of the global demand for chrysoprase. However, my recent travels to China had made me realise how good quality jadeite is slowly disappearing off the market in China and prices this year along rose 300% in the last 6 months, I then realised that people were obviously looking for something else to quench their green rock thirst. Unfortunately gem grade chrysoprase is also rare, so with the demand for the green being on the rise, and pricing following suit, it was then plainly obvious to me that people were trying to cash in on the wave.

I suppose this was the impetus for me to find the source and approach the mines. Right now, all our chrysoprase is either mine stock rough or vintage rough. And mine stock Marlborough rough A grade is just phenomenal. Here is the link of our gallery and you can see the photos of the chrysoprase mine trip we had earlier in the year.

I guess without writting an entire book here, do feel free to come on into our site and you are very welcomed to post any questions about chrysoprase on our forums. That way we can answer you almost straight away. Registration for membership on our website is 100% free and we never spam.

Yvonne :-)

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