Gift-giving season is when jewelry merchants offer stones that have exotic-sounding names attempting to pass as much rarer or more expensive stones. By no means complete, this is a brief look at gem imitations on the market so you can make informed decisions about what you’re buying.

Example: Bohemian Emerald is not an emerald at all. It’s really Green Fluorite, which is a lovely semi-precious gemstone but is about 1/12 the cost of the most inexpensive grade of emerald. These dupes are fantastic when you want the look of something precious on a semi-precious budget. But be careful; there are disreputable dealers who will charge you much more than the value of the semi-precious stone.

Then there are other cleverly named stones that are not simply semi-precious dupes, but might be a much less expensive item altered to look like a gemstone and given a clever name to make the buyer think it is simply a lower-cost gemstone option. These include synthetic stones, lab-generated stones, stones that are lab treated with chemicals or intense heat to simulate the color of other gemstones, or even colored glass or ceramic. These stones offer the least value for the money.

Diamonds

Diamonds are probably the most often imitated stone. Everything from Cubic Zirconia to plain old cut glass can be given a fancy name to mimic some “specialty” kind of diamond. Look out for:

• Diagem (Strontium Titanate)

• Diakon, Dialite, Diamanite, Diamonair, Diamone, Diamonique (versions I, II, and III), Diamonesque, Diamonette, Diamonflame, Diamondite, Diarita, Djevalite (mostly CZ)

• Diamante (Rhinestone)

• Diamite, Diamogem, Di'Yag (synthetic white garnet)

• Diamonaura (a synthetic stone with the same chemical compound as a genuine diamond)

• Diamon-brite, Diamonte, Diamontina, (treated Rock Quartz)

• Diamothyst (synthetic Rutile Quartz)

• Jourado Diamond (Synthetic Spinel)

These natural stones will sometimes be passed off as diamonds:

Clear Quartz (Rock Quartz)

Moissanite (very rare in nature, so most are lab-generated, popularly marketed as Diamonite)

• White Sapphire

• White Spinel

• White Topaz

• White Zircon

Pearls

Pearls are the second most popular gem to imitate. Unlike Natural Pearls or Cultured Pearls, which are produced by and then harvested from oysters (or other mollusks), the following are imitations, ranging from glass to resin and other synthetic compounds. Look out for:

Delta pearls, La beau pearls, La Tausca pearls, and Tecla pearls. Also pieces of shell can be cut and polished to imitate pearls, like the shell distributed as an Oil Pearl.

Emeralds

Emeralds are precious – and costly. Emeralds range from $200 to $18,000 per carat, depending on the quality. There are several semi-precious stones passing as duplicates for the emerald at a tiny fraction of that cost ($15 - $50 per carat, depending on the stone and its quality) But there are imitators passed off as natural emeralds, under the following names:

• Gilson Emerald, Lennox Emerald, Regency Emerald, which are all synthetic lab-engineered stones

• Broghton Emerald, Medina Emerald, Endura Emerald, Ferrer's Emerald, which are only colored glass.

Sapphires

Blue Spinel or Blue Zircon can sometimes be sold as a sapphire dupe, but there are also synthetic duplicates of those precious stones. The most widely found synthetic sapphire on the market is the Hope Sapphire, and Burma Sapphire is another lab-generated stone.

Rubies

Rounding out the big-four precious gemstones with a lot of imitators on the market are rubies. Rubies are formed from corundum, just like sapphires, but with chromium in the mix to give it a red color that can range from deep pink to brilliant crimson, to a deep bluish red known as “pigeon’s blood” red.

Like all the precious gems, natural rubies are the result of a million⁺ years under immense pressure miles underground, so they’re very rare and expensive. Natural rubies are second only to diamonds in their density and hardness. (You cannot scratch a genuine ruby, except by using a diamond.)

Lab-generated rubies are made from the same geological “recipe” with conditions replicated in a lab to create a gem in several months to a few years, instead of a thousand millennia. Widely-known lab-generated rubies are the Geneva Ruby and the Wyse Ruby.

Other semi-precious red stones, like garnet, spinel, and tourmaline, will be marketed under the names American Ruby, Australian Ruby, Balas Ruby, Black Hills Ruby, Bohemian Ruby, California Ruby, Cape Ruby, Colorado Ruby, Fashoda Ruby, Montana Ruby, Pomegranate Ruby, Rock Ruby, Rocky Mountain Ruby, San Diego Ruby, Siberian Ruby

Amethyst

Amethyst is a type of silica quartz crystal that has become very popular for its healing properties, especially for people in recovery who keep this “Stone of Sobriety” as a talisman. So there are a lot of imitations on the market. A natural Amethyst is not uniform in color but has subtle variations of violet, indigo, and lavender. A natural amethyst will also not be perfectly transparent and will have threads of darker colors or even white from other minerals trapped inside as the stone cooled while forming. Spodumene is marketed as Lithia Amethyst, but there are also dyed Quartz or low-grade sapphires, and even colored glass posing as amethyst. Watch out for names like: Bengal Amethyst, Desert Amethyst and Japanese Amethyst, which are all widely marketed synthetics.

Turquoise

Turquoise is in great demand for its brilliant blue color, legendary healing properties, and its role in spirit work. So it’s no surprise that there are lots of imitators on the market. Look out for:

• dyed Variscite under the names Australian Turquoise, Utah Turquoise, or Nevada Turquoise,

• Chinese Turquoise, which can be Blue Quartz, Blue Calcite or dyed Soapstone,

• Sacred Turquoise, which is Smithsonite, and

• Vienna Turquoise, which is only colored glass.

Lapis Lazuli

Prized for its brilliant blue color since the time of Ancient Egypt, Lapis Lazuli is a costly gemstone that is not a gemstone mineral, but a rock of blended mineral deposits of lazurite, calcite and pyrite – but It can also contain sodalite, hauyne, wollastonite, afghanite, mica, dolomite, diopside, and a diversity of other minerals. But to be called "lapis lazuli," a rock must have a distinctly blue color and contain at least 25% blue lazurite. Because there are so many variations in the natural stone, imitators are plentiful and fairly easy to pass off as the real thing. Imitation Lapis Lazuli exists as far back as Ancient Egypt with Faience, a glazed non-clay ceramic material. Millennia later, craftsmen got in on making imitation Italian Lapis, Nevada Lapis, and Swiss Lapis by dyeing Chalcedony or Jasper, while Sodalite is marketed as German Lapis or Canadian Lapis.

Opals

Like Quartz and Obsidian, Opals are made of silica, so they are not a gemstone as much they are a naturally occurring form of glass. The luminescent qualities of the opal are due to water trapped in the silica particles as silica sediment gelled and solidified (quartz and obsidian form as molten silica cools). Because they form as sediment in bodies of water and actually have water in them, opals are rare, delicate, and a s diverse as snowflakes or fingerprints. A semi-precious stone frequently marketed as an Opal is the Lake Superior Fire Agate, which is the Official State Gemstone of Minnesota. There are also imitation opals made from layers of glass carefully arranged to give the refractory kaleidoscope effect of an opal. The easiest way to detect an imitation opal is to view it from the side. Real opals will have a kaleidoscope effect when viewed from any angle, and their surface will be perfectly smooth. The kaleidoscope effect found in imitation opals is literally pieced together, which results in stacking lines when viewed from the side or a snakeskin pattern on the surface. Another way to detect an imitation opal is to see how it’s displayed – real opals are NEVER displayed in sunlit areas or near a heating source. Because opals have water in the stone (6% to 15% water) they are very sensitive to sunlight and heat, which can dry out the stone and cause it to become cloudy or crack. If you see an opal in a shop window, it’s almost surely glass or some other material.

Jade

In its purest form, Jade is the mineral Jadeite, but some gemologists will also classify Nephrite as Jade. It ranges in color from white to deep green and will have naturally occurring tiny brownish-yellow or black specks or threads called inclusions. Skilled carvers cannot always cut around the inclusions, and may treat the stone with acid to bleach the inclusions away, then fill the space they once occupied with a wax filler or polymer – or between bleaching and filling the jade, they may choose to add a dye to alter the color to a more brilliant green or any other color. Jade is classified into types A, B, C and D, depending on how much it has been altered from its natural form. Type A natural Jade and is very expensive; Imperial Jade and Burmese Jade can cost more than diamonds! Because it’s so precious and in demand, there are a lot of imitators on the market.

Treated Jade (Types, B, C, and D) will sometimes be commercially known as Korean Jade, which is less expensive than untreated Jade. All natural Jade feels heavy for its size and has excellent hardness; it will not scratch. Natural Jade can also be lavender (purple or violet), brown, blue and black, but it is rarer than the green or white Jade, and most of the other color Jade you find on the market is polished and dyed glass. One name to watch out for is Meta-Jade.

Many other rocks and minerals have been marketed as Jade, especially Nephrite and Serpentine (New Jade), but there are also these gemstones and minerals:

• Amazonite marketed as Amazon Jade,

• Aventurine marketed as Indian Jade,

• Bowenite marketed as Soochow Jade,

• dyed Chalcedony marketed as Oregon Jade,

• Microcline Feldspar marketed as Colorado Jade,

• Grossular Garnet (yes, there’s a green garnet) marketed as Transvaal Jade,

• dyed Jasper marketed as Swiss Jade,

• Pectolite marketed as Pectolite Jade,

• Saussarite marketed as Jade Tenace

• Soapstone marketed as Fukien Jade, Hunan Jade, or Manchurian Jade

• Steatite marketed as Shanghai Jade

• Variscite marketed as Australian Jade, and

• Vesuvianite marketed as California Jade.

Green Tourmaline

Even semi-precious stones that are marketed as dupes of precious stones can have their imitators. Green Tourmaline, which sometimes is marketed as a faux Emerald under the name Emeraldite can be imitated with even cheaper materials. Watch out for a synthetic Green Spinel posing as Green Tourmaline under the name Tourmaline Green.

Blue Obsidian

Obsidian, as it occurs in nature is volcanic silica – a naturally occurring glass, fired by the forces of volcanic activity. So it should be no surprise that most obsidian is black, and there are variations caused by anything from other naturally occurring minerals mixed with the silica, giving it colored spots or bands (sometimes the bands are large enough to alter the base color, as in the case of Mahogany Obsidian, which has large deposits of Hematite or Magnetite that impart a brown “mahogany” color. Sheen Obsidian is caused by fine bubbles of air suspended in the silica as it cooled, making a frosty glow or colored sheen. One of the rarer varieties of Sheen Obsidian is Blue Obsidian, which can range from black with a blue sheen to a translucent light blue that looks like glass. Naturally-occurring Blue Obsidian is extremely rare and very expensive. Most of what’s on the market as Blue Obsidian is either a by-product of the smelting process known as slag, or it’s simply colored glass. Lab-generated Blue Obsidian is often much brighter in color than the natural stone. Natural obsidian of all types will not be perfect – it will have bands, specks, streaks, threads, or feathering (inclusions). If you see a bright blue colored stone without inclusions listed as Blue Obsidian, it is almost certainly an imitation. (Most green or red obsidian is also an imitation. A naturally occurring Green Obsidian stone is the Gaia Stone (or Helenite), most of which occurs near Mt. St. Helens.)

The Takeaway

Before you lay down money for a gemstone, make sure you are working with a reputable dealer who knows their product. Ask about the sourcing of the stone (where it was mined), the grading of the stone (there are standard scales for quality). For precious stones (Diamond, Emerald, Sapphire, Ruby) you will want to ask for a certification. That’s where a licensed gemological lab has verified the composition of the stone and its grading, which is authentication of its value.

Happy Holidays and Happy Shopping!

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