What is Imitation or Man made Turquoise
What is man made turquoise or imitation turquoise? I will also cover the other stones that are dyed to look like turquoise. Man made is a term that describes turquoise that would analyze as turquoise but is of course man made. This turquoise is made from the same ingredients as the real turquoise and produced with near the same hardness. I have seen many attempts at this over the years but have seen none that looks close to the real thing. The best that I have seen was just one shade of robin’s egg blue that had no matrix. But when you looked close at it you could still see little specks of material that was different shades. I also have not seen any that polished right it was very grainy. But we live in a big world and new processes come up every day. The attempts at matrix patterns looked very unnatural and were just too even in color and do not match the different shades of color that are present in the natural turquoise. I have also seen the use of natural materials being used in the mixture such as iron pyrite .So do not be fooled if you see iron pyrite in the stone, you still need to look at the other factors.
Imitation turquoise.
This is made from other materials than what is in the natural stone. This category can include any material that can be made up and dyed to look like turquoise. I have even seen blue plastic garbage cans that were melted into looking like turquoise nuggets and sold to tourists along Rt. 66. Don’t assume heritage eliminates fraud.
Both man made and the imitation turquoise materials are made into blocks or are cut offs or slices from these blocks. Most of the material I have seen is poured into blocks roughly the size of a loaf of bread. t is a plastic and color and filler composite. Some is just blue and no matrix. Some is made to look like certain mines and has the colors of matrix from certain mines. They also add certain natural materials like iron pyrite (fools gold ) and certain natural rock to give it a natural quality. Formulators are very good at what they do. The use of this material is designed for the imitation jewelry market. But then there are those that can take it into the better jewelry. Most of this material is used to make cheap costume jewelry .I have seen very little make it into the better jewelry. The biggest use of this material is used to make the little inlay stones that have all the different colors of inlay. I have also seen a lot of this used in the import silver jewelry that has many colors of stone used. Most of this material is used with the other imitations together. Of course in the bead world this material is used very extensively and there are many different bead made from it. They make a lot of heshi strands from this also and a lot of the formed beads. Anytime you see this material in the rough, its form is that of a block or cut from a block into slices. This makes it very easy to identify in the rough .When this material is cut into stones the polish on the stones looks grainy or textured. This isn’t a 100 % rule but does apply to most. There are of course imitation cabs that are very shiny but again just look to perfect and are one shade of blue.
Dyed Rock
The third category that I will discuss is the use of other stones that are dyed to look like turquoise. There are many natural stones that when dyed blue look a lot like turquoise. Again beware of all the stones being the exact same shade of color. Back in the 1970’s the most common stone that was dyed to look like turquoise was howlite. I have seen it sold under various names such as Turquisite as well as other names. This stone was again very easy to detect for an old pro .The dye in this case would not penetrate the black matrix that was in Howlite and looked very natural. I have seen much material coming out of the foreign countries with interesting names. Chinese turquoise is for the most part turquoise. But I have seen a lot of material from China that is not turquoise being sold as Turquoise Stone. This is not turquoise it is turquoise stone which is ONLY a name given for this dyed material. I have also seen some material with the name African turquoise, again this is not turquoise .From what I have this is serpentine and is named African turquoise , but not turquoise. Just like Sterling silver is not German silver or Mexican silver. You have to educate yourself of the usage of terms. Most turquoise that is sold in bead shops is not turquoise and the owners of these shops would not know turquoise if it hit them on the side of their heads. They buy strands of beads from these overseas bead dealers and assume that turquoise stone is turquoise. You get what you pay for; if it seems to cheap there is a reason.
Copyright 2010 @ James Saunders
