Fakebusters: Citrine

Today is a very special edition of Fakebusters, citrine! Citrine is one to really look out for, because the real form is rare and expensive. I have three examples here of what is sold as citrine. The first is real citrine from Zambia. It is a gentle golden to yellow colour, has smokey quartz present and a little iron staining. The second is lemon quartz, an irradiated form of citrine in smokey quartz. This is created by taking low quality citrine and irradiating it to improve colour and remove cloudiness. The colour is a bright jaundiced yellow. The third is heat treated citrine, which originally was unearthed as amethyst. It is then heat treated to turn it a deep orange/ yellow.

Normally over millennia amethyst and other quartzes that are exposed to heat and radiation within the ground slowly become the natural citrine you see on the right.