Fakebusters: Aquamarine

Well it is time for a new Fakebusters, once again we have trawled the internet looking for the various fakes people are selling as aquamarine.

So you may remember this photo from the tiger eye Fakebusters we did just a few days ago. This is not a trick. Someone took this picture of a fake tiger eye bracelet and listed it as aquamarine! Clearly this bracelet is not even close to being the colour or texture of aquamarine!

Our next false aquamarine is at least a little closer to the correct colour, however the trick to detecting the fakery in this picture lies with the third bead in from the left, second row. You can see a fat band of puddled dye right through the middle of it! There is also an oddness in the texture of the crystal as well as the opacity. 

This bizarre aquamarine fake isn't even close to the correct texture. Rough aquamarine would not be as porous looking, and would break a lot smoother. It naturally grows in long hexagonal tracts, being a beryl.

Clearly this is similar to the fake above, however the artificial colour is outrageously wrong! Not even close folks!

This is another fake image that has been used to sell multiple crystals.  This type of stone has been sold as both aquamarine and blue kyanite, which is actually far closer to this crystal aesthetically. 

Next we have this rather hideous fake, a blotchy baby blue carved oddity. The colour is wrong, the texture appears to be flour-ey as opposed to the brittle beryl and the uniformity is incorrect. There is too much puddling of colour, which seems to have no green in it at all.

This is one of the more common crystal substitutions for aquamarine, and one I am deeply connected to. This was my very first Fakebusters, spotted at my market stall. The first hint is of course the price. A good quality piece of aquamarine at this size would be hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.  Secondly, the colour is way off for the bluey green of aquamarine. Finally the morphology is totally incorrect. Real aquamarine grows in a hexagonal shape, where as this is more flaky shards.