Fakebusters: Rutilated Quartz

What a surprise, the internet yields more fakes for us! Today we will take a look at the various fakes being sold as golden rutilated quartz.

Luckily most of the golden rutile fakes appear largely the same.  They appear to have some kind of gold coloured foil strands suspended in glass. If you look closely they all have blunt, square ends, not at all like the natural tapered end of a crystal.  The rutile strands are all too thick also, as natural rutile appears incredibly thin, however multiple strands often grow together to look like a larger strand.  

This fake is a little hilarious as it looks like some green foil got caught up in the gold foil, and then got suspended in glass with the rest of it!

This is a fabulous example of real golden rutile in quartz. There is strong growth patterns to the rutile, variation of fiber size and the quartz looks a lot more natural. If you find a specimen like this for sale, jump on it!