Notes From The Laboratory

2007: Here is another tip from my mentor. Fuel for thought. This is done even today. Keep your eyes open.

(via The Journal of Gemmology, Vol.XIX, N0.2, April 1984) Kenneth Scarratt writes:

An item that we have seen quite a number of examples of over the past few years is the imitation crystal.

One interesting specimen made to imitate ruby was composed of fragments of natural and synthetic (Verneuil) ruby together by an adhesive and coated in mica. More often than not though, these imitations are made to resemble emerald, in particular the type of mica-coated rough that emanates from East Africa.

Sometimes produced with obvious crystal form, or more convincingly with the minimum of form, the basic material for this type of imitation is either very poor quality emerald, beryl or glass. The poor quality emerald or beryl varieties may be manufactured either by slicing the crystal down its length and gluing the two pieces back together with a green adhesive and then coating the whole in mica, or by hollowing out the crystal, infilling with a green substance and then coating the base with a matrix-like material.