The-Vug.com has the best guide to mineral fakes and forgeries online and it just got better!!

The guide has been refreshed and now it is, hands down, the very best mineral fakes page online.
It seperates the fake minerals into different subjects;

YOU can HELP spread this information far and wide by posting this link on your facebook, in your club newsletter, on your website or blog, on a post at that social networking site you love so much or ANYWHERE! People should know the basics of these scams so they don’t get scammed while visiting a gem and mineral show in Tucson or Denver!

http://www.the-vug.com/vug/vugfakes.html

Some of the new addition to the guide are a video showing how to form bismuth crystals, new “man modified” crystals, better examples of irradiated heliodor and smoky quartz. Photos of the roasted acanthite ore silver specimens are available to view, though the mineral community would like to silently sweep that one under the rug. The legendary scam lapidary item, Cal-Silica is featured, along with all your favorite range of dyed minerals!

If you never checked out the old guide, here is your chance to get a fresh view! If you are familiar with the classic guide, you’ll love our new updated version! Thanks to everyone at The-Vug.com for providing the new content and thanks to you for sharing it with your friends!

Insert this snippet of code into your website or blog to place our banner and link on your site! By doing so you are helping so many people avoid getting scammed!

http://www.the-vug.com/vug/vugfakes.html

In a perfect example of Namibian forward thinking, in 2010, the Minister of Mines told the artisan miner population to avoid the sale of faked and created mineral specimens. While fakes from Namibia have always been somewhat uncommon, a few mineral dealers have been temporarily disappointed when a flat of crafted specimens make their way onto the mineral marketplace. The clusters from Erongo are typically the most forged. The feldspar matrix can have aquamarine and fluorite crystals glued on with bits of mica over-top the glue. Yet, the natural clusters are so good, it keeps mineral collectors coming back.

This was from Isak Katali’s announcement at the opening of the Uiba Oas Crystal Market, where the local dealers can set up shop in this government sponsored building, providing a centralized buying market as well as shade in the treeless Namibian desert.

Namibia is a wonderful country to visit. The beautiful scenery, the exotic wildlife and the amazing people all make for an unforgettable experience. To add the fact that such a bounty of fine crystallized minerals for sale are there is another bonus to a desert paradise!

Check out this handy travel guide, it is just like the one I used when I visited Namibia
Namibia, 4th: The Bradt Travel Guide

These first showed up at the Denver mineral show in 2009.

Many people were suspicious about these being made by microabrasion, but nothing had been proven either way. I saw Ed Rosenzweig at the Houston mineral show and talked to him about the pieces. He was one of the main dealers selling them at the Springfield show, but as soon as controversy came up, he stopped selling them. He lent me five pieces of hollow galena that he had been told were natural. I also received two samples of hollow galena from an anonymous donor, which he had made by microabrasion, using a machine like the MicronBlaster MB10 Micro Sandblasting Unit.

Lance Kearns at James Madison University offered to let me use the SEM there, so I chose two specimens from Ed and one fake to look at. The fake one still had remnants of abrasive material embedded in the surface – and so did the other two. Here is a picture of a glass ball in one of the specimens from Ed:

The other piece had crystals of aluminum silicate rather than glass spheres – but still abrasives!

This doesn’t prove that all of the hollow galenas are fakes, but there are definitely fake ones out there.

Jessica Simonoff, author of this post, is the youngest summer program intern in the geology division of The Smithsonian. This link is for the CLASSIC Smithsonian Handbook of Rocks and Minerals inspiring thousands of children around North America.

We originally heard about these at the Munich show, however, by the time we went to the booth they were gone. So, I’m both bothered they would bring them to Tucson, yet, happy that John Veevaert got a photograph of one to share with you at home.

Let’s all thank John for showing us this photo!
and check out Collector’s Guide to Fluorite, a great new book about Fluorite crystals, now available for sale

Stay away from these specimens, fake fluorites from China

“Article” on meteorite find in the UK

Is this a meteorite?

Check out this article…the meteorite is described as
“black with a shiny crystal-like gleam”
“thought it was a lump of coal”

Are we sure it is not just a piece of slag or maybe a tektite. Hey, good for the kid for finding a rock in the back yard, but did they verify the specimen with ANYONE else besides the parents and eBay? It doesn’t say so in the article. Sloppy reporting for sure!

Stuff tends to spread like wildfire on the internet, and anything that drags you away from Twitter or Facebook will usually be either something completely amazing or, as more commonly experienced, a complete and utter hoax. I genuinely worry about the people that fall for this stuff – if you’re buying meteories off the internet, then chances are you’re probably being scammed. I could go outside and buy some red sandstone, take a welder to it, and claim it was from Mars. Would I make a ton of money? MAYBE!

I have a friend who is an avid meteorite hunter and he swears by the book Field Guide to Meteors and Meteorites. He has gone to Morocco and been on the trail of meteorite falls all over the United States. The amount of work that he puts into tracking, sourcing and looking for meteorites is much different than the standard, “hey, this black rock looks like a meteor” that you see in so many stories like this.

I was first told about these fakes last year, single Calcite crystals glued together in clusters on basalt matrix.

FakeMinerals was given these pictures from Sami at Matrix India, exposing these fakes.

As you can see, the Calcites are grouped together in circular sprays. At the base of the crystals the glue is visible.

So, if you see any of these on EBAY or at a local rock show, beware, they are F-A-K-E!

Certainly not something you want to find out about your beautiful gem crystal on matrix…but in fact, a whole subdivision of gem mineral sales at the point of origin are sometimes manufactured specimens involving a liberal slathering of glue to hold everyting in place.

For instance, the new wonderful Scorodite xtls on matrix from China. Beautiful, yet glued.

So, if you have any specimens you wonder about, give them a soak in some Acetone. See what falls apart! Sometimes nothing, sometime something substantial. Bummer for us honest mineral collectors and dealers.

Thanks to Dr. L for the photo!

Stretch Young wrote a great article about this subject relating to Emeralds in Calcite from Bolivia for The-Vug.com Quarterly Magazine Fakes Issue, which is available in the Hardcover collected reprint of the magazine, available on The-Vug.com

People ask me all the time which glue is the best for repairing your specimens, as well as the most common used glue…
Instant Krazy Glue, of course!

In the video above, Alfredo Petrov shows Justin Zzyzx an Aragonite with Gypsum from Spain that has been dipped into Copper Sulfate, turning the Aragonite EMERALD COLORED!, as if it were pseudomorphed into Malachite. Very pretty, but very fake!

You can buy a bucket of Applied Bio Chemists Aquarium COPPER SULFATE 5 lb and experiment with calcite and other minerals turning different colors and grow some of your own crystals. It is a lot of fun, but don’t sell the end product as a legit mineral!

We have been over the red glass sold as red quartz issue before, the first time I saw it was in 2002 and it seems it will never stop, though the popularity it dwindling.

Red Quartz polished items from China are Red Glass. Very simple. In fact, some also say it is from Madagascar or somewhere in the asian pacific. Of course it is really just polished red glass.

We came across an eBay auction a few years ago, two seller accounts, the same photos!

One is a buy it now with FREE shipping! Only $88.00

Next is an auction for .99 with $70.00 shipping!

Either way, getting his price! Advertises it as “POLISHED BLOOD-RED QUARTZ CRYSTAL”, but in reality needs to be labeled “Bright Red Glass Sphere”

Don’t we all WISH there was a RED QUARTZ location in nature that actually produces stuff like this? Who knows, maybe one day we will find one just like that in a huge quanity, but until then, GLASS. It is glass.

The image above is a page out of The-Vug.com Quarterly Magazine, which you can buy directly from the publisher, FortySevenPress.com. You can see, this stuff is now being marketed as a material for cheap beads, like the auction below.

Take a look at these samples of “Chinese Charoite” on ebay!

Versus the real deal Charoite, like the examples below.

Colorful Okenite is DYED OKENITE!

Click on this link above and visit The-Vug.com to watch us dye Okenite with food coloring!
You can get the Fakes and Forgeries issue of The-Vug.com Quarterly Magazine in the complete reprint book, available HERE on The-Vug.com

It is exciting to watch the okenite absorb the food coloring so rapidly. Like a cotton ball, simply touching the okenite to the liquid draws the food coloring deep inside the cluster in an instant.

Check out these yellow okenite clusters on eBay.

They even make them in verde!

Citrine is one of those minerals that causes the most confusion when people start collecting minerals.

Naturally occuring Citrine is a variety of Quartz that is found at only in superb examples few places in the world. The color of natural Citrine is a lemon shade, in stark contrast to the predominatly red influence to the majority of “Citrine” available to begining collectors.

Since there are so few locations for great quality natural Citrine, the demand for this brightly colored mineral lead to people figuring out that if you stuck certain types of Amethyst into a kiln you could turn the purple into a deep reddish orange.

I’ve sent numerous messages to some dealers about the misleading descriptions and they respond by making the descriptions that much more misleading!

This
Take this quote for example…

Citrine is very difficult to acquire, and the cost is more expensive than Amethyst of the same quality. This Citrine is a higher standard of quality which of course commands a higher price as with all of my Citrine speciments they have very little matrix which means more crystals for your money.

The problem with this statement is that there is no difficulty to acquire heat treated Citrine from Brazil. Do you need a 5000 pound contaner load? I can have one delivered to you with a couple of phone calls. The Amethyst deposits of South America are nearly limitless and while amazingly beautiful, not lacking in abundance. The problem with heat treated Amethyst is that it becomes brittle and subject to cracking. Is this a “bad” thing? Not really, there is always room for treated decorator minerals. But honesty should be key, informing the customer of what they are buying, rather than leading them to belive that bright orange citrine crystals come out of the basalts of southern Brazil. This stuff is sold by the kilo. Don’t be a sucker, shop around for the best price and form, you’ll get much more enjoyment that way.

Now, a language barrier is leading many dealers from Asia to sell Quartz that has been found with a layer of Iron Oxide over the surface as Citrine. In reality, a dip in some Oxalic acid will return these Quartz crystals to their proper form, white Quartz. Western Vs. Eastern ideals on names and the nature of fakes varies and while we might demand proper identification, the asian market will just label minerals whatever suits them that day. So, iron stained Quartz becomes Citrine! But in reality, most people remove the Iron staining from their specimens.

One of my favorite websites for gemstone scams is gone, but it was…Colored-Stone.com! There are always people coming up with new ways to dye, irradiate, heat and otherwise screw with the color of a natural gem.

Well, this material, “Andesine Labradorite” has been on the market for awhile, mimicing the most sought after colors and effects shown in top quality Oregon sunstone. Long story short…injected with dye. Whoot!

You should go to this website and read the whole story. It is quite amazing!

To sum it up, this material that was claimed to be completely 100% natural was actually treated, as suspected.

Written By Justin Zzyzx and Brandy Naugle for FakeMinerals.com

Investigative Reporting by Yinan Wang

Arkansas is known for something very unique.

The ONLY public access diamond mine in the entire world. For a small fee, anyone can go to the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro Arkansas and search for diamonds in the giant open dirt field.

While it is certainly no easy task to unearth a diamond here, amazing finds have been reported and tracked through time. The average diamond found at the “Crater” is far less than a carat, most weighing in at under 10 points (that’s 1/10th of a carat) (TINY!). Finding a nice big fat stone over a carat is something people work for years and don’t find!

Diamonds at the Crater come in several shades, 70% of them being white, with brown coming in second and yellow is a close third.

The state park registers all of the diamonds that people find at the park, if they are willing to register it. Some don’t because they want to keep it private, while many want the nifty card that you get when you register your diamond with the park. They even keep track of everyone’s finds on their website, www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com.

Diamonds from Arkansas are also special because of a very important fact. They are worth a great deal more than similar diamonds from commercial mines around the world. They are so special and unique, plus they tend to be among the hardest diamonds known to man. They have a unique form and often look like sleek drops of glass, rather than crude cubes and rough diamonds of so many African locations. So, an Arkansas diamond is going to be one of the most expensive diamonds you can get, but rightfully so!

Now that you know all about the important facts about diamonds from the “Crater of Diamonds State Park”, learn about how someone almost came up with a perfect scam.

You could not take any diamond into the park and just plant it on the ground. Or at least no one thought you could because a diamond from Africa, Brazil, Russia, et al. would not produce diamonds that look like the ones from Arkansas. But someone found a source that could pass for Arkansas diamonds. A source in India that imports diamonds from the Panna Mines.

Photos of diamond lots sent to Eric to examine prior to purchase.

India produces hundreds of thousands more diamonds than the US, therefore, the diamonds from India are much cheaper than their American counterparts. A man named Eric Blake (www.arkansasdiamondjewelry.com) figured out he could make some money by purchasing diamonds from India then take them into the park and “find” them.

A brown diamond from India costs around $100 per carat, while a similar diamond from Arkansas costs $1000 -$2000 per carat. A profit of more than 1000%.

In late October of 2007, Eric Blake and his family took a trip to the “Crater” and found an amazing amount of LARGE BROWN DIAMONDS!

It was no coincidence that he also placed a rush order for an assortment of Indian diamonds to be delivered no later than October 18th.

On 10/6/07 Eric sent the following message from his girlfriend (and accomplice) Susan Gabrielson’s email account.

Hello (Name Withheld),I may have deleted your last mail by accident. As I have not gotten a response from you. We are eagerly awaiting your mail. The stones must be received no later than October 18, 2007. Anything you can do to expedite this shipment would be greatly appreciated.

Over the span of 5 days, Eric and his three assistants “found” over 16.5 carats of diamonds at the park, including a whopping 3.92 carat stone! What great luck, eh? Out of all of the recorded finds they had that week, 60% of them were brown! What an interesting thing, because usually only around 20% of the finds are brown in color.

Screen captures of from the park diamond find archive for Eric Blake, Susan Gabrielson, Sarah Gabrielson, & Sayde Gabrielson

Eric also owns a website called ArkansasDiamondJewelry.com which sells diamonds and jewelry, reported to come from the “Crater” complete with certificate of authenticity issued by the Arkansas State Park. However, some of the diamonds on the site are proven to be Indian in origin. FakeMinerals.com received paperwork which shows Eric Blake importing diamonds from India in early October.

Kimberly Certificate

UPS Tracking code, screen captured from UPS.com

If that isn’t damning enough, photos taken by the salesperson in India which clearly match up with diamonds for sale on ArkansasDiamondJewelry.com

In addition, Eric sells “Arkansas Diamonds” on eBay (sayde1garcia) and has successfully sold some of his Indian diamonds to mineral dealers here in America as originating from Arkansas.

Private sources have indicated that they have been onto Mr. Blake for a few months now, but they have lacked the evidence to be sure that he was “salting” the diamond field.

One regular digger at the “Crater” met Mr. Blake in 2006 when he first tried out his scam. At that time he only registered a few diamonds. Mr. Blake offered to let the regular digger search his hole when he was done. It wasn’t much surprise that the regular didn’t find anything else in that hole. In 2007 Mr. Blake and his family were digging in an area that is known to be the dumping ground for gravel that was trucked in 1924 to put in a road. This gravel is completely free from diamonds as it is not from the diamond field, however they found a remarkable 32 diamonds! Mr. Blake then offered the hole to another family when they were leaving and while the family moved quite a bit of material, no more diamonds were forthcoming.

Mr. Blake. The diggers at the “Crater of Diamonds State Park” would like you to know that you are persona non grata.

With this information MOST, IF NOT ALL of the Diamonds sold by Mr. Blake are not from Arkansas and should be labeled as coming from the Panna Mine in India.

It is amazing that someone could think they would get away with trying to scam these finds, especially since there are dozens of people who stare, poke and prod at the numbers of the finds on the Crater’s website. 32 diamonds is an impossible number of diamonds to be found by two adults and two children during 5 days at the park.

Additionaly, As recently as January 2008, Eric has sent emails trying to “match” certain stones. And while there is nothing wrong with that in itself, in this context, it is more than a little suspicious.

I leave you with this parting thought… What is the Travel Channel’s most promoted collecting location on their “Best Places to find Cash and Treasures” series? Yep, you guessed it! Crater of Diamonds State Park! Could this be the beginning of the inevitable backlash associated with promoting this “get rich quick” mentality to mineral collecting? I guess only time will tell.

Fake Minerals and Scams are all around us. If you catch wind of something fishy, send to us here at Justin@the-vug.com

Thanks again to Hal Guyot (GeoSleuth@gmail.com) for all your hard work on this story!

Special Extra Thanks goes out to the HONEST INDIAN DEALER, Malay Hirani of Soni Tools (www.sonitools.com) for being willing to help stop fraud!

UPDATE!: Just google Eric Blake’s name on Google and you will find AP News report after AP News report about his 3.92 carat stone find in October of 2007. Not only did he scam the public, the state park, but he also scamed the media. What a guy!

UPDATE!: As soon as Eric heard about this website, he removed the photos that match up above and got rid of his “Dealer Lot” section, well, those diamonds matched up perfectly!

UPDATE!: There is a ton of additional extra evidence and it has all been turned into the authorities. We do not know if anyone will ever see that this out to justice, but you can be sure that far and wide, people know what to look out for and a scammer has been chased out!

And here is a picture found on Google of Eric Blake holding his “famous find”.

FINAL UPDATE: This story is now ancient history, newspaper articles were written, TV and Radio interviews were given, National Geographic even wrote about the scam.