Imitation Gemstones

What is an imitation gemstone?
Any gem material which imitates the appearance of another but does not possess its characteristic chemical, optical, physical properties is perceived as an imitation gemstone. The majority is man-made.

In natural gemstone category, for example, colored foilbacked star rose quartz may imitate star rubies or sapphires; irradiated blue topaz is also perceived as an aquamarine imitation.

In synthetic gemstone category, for instance synthetic spinel may be a good imitation for aquamarine, sapphire, blue topaz, blue zircon and others.

Manmade gem materials such as synthetic strontium titanate, synthetic cubic zirconia, synthetic moissanite, synthetic yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG), synthetic gadolium gallium garnet (GGG), synthetic rutile and others may be good imitations for diamond.

Glass is well known to imitate transparent and translucent colored gemstones.

Plastic which is a synthesized resin is not perceived as true synthetic, but it is perceived as good imitations for gemstones like opal and other colored gemstones.

Assembled or composite are also well known to be good imitations. Gem materials may be assembled from natural, synthetic or other imitations to look like natural gemstones. The common imitations include synthetic spinel doublets and triplets; synthetic corundum or spinel crown with synthetic strontium titanate base known as dialite; natural sapphire crown with synthetic blue sapphire or ruby base known as corundum doublets; garnet crown with glass base imitating green colored stones are widely found in the gem and jewelry.