Oh! Shiny!

Is it just me or is there more and more junk being pawned off as real these day?  I Make fine hand crafted jewelry and I am always very careful about differentiating between real and fake, treated and untreated, natural and synthetic etc...  the problem is that there are so many hobbyists out there that are muddying the waters with their trinkets that the average buyer has no idea what they are actually paying for.  So here is a little buyers guide on things to look for and the basics of buying jewelry.

Real versus synthetic:
When a jeweler has an items, such as a ruby ring, listed for sale, they are required by law to reveal everything that they know about the stone and the metal.  This includes if the stone is natural or not, any treatments and irregularities as well as the properties of the metal, such as being solid or plated, and how pure it is.

So What is "Real"?
Well, This is sort of a novice question, as the stone you are looking at is always real; it certainly is not imaginary... so asking if it is real wont get you any closer to a relative answer... What you need to ask is if it is "Natural" or "earth mined".  This means that it was mined from the earth, not grown in a laboratory.  However, Most natural stones out there are treated in some way. For example, about 90% of the gemstones on the market have been heat treated to enhance their color and clarity... especially amethyst, sapphire, ruby, and many others...

But I want a 100% Natural Untreated stone!!!
Well, be prepared to pay out the nose for it.  The cost for a natural untreated natural stone will often be ten times that of its heated counter part.

What about grades?
Different stones are graded differently, for example, Diamonds have a grading scale that is different from colored stones.  The highest grade for most colored stones is either AAA Grade or Collection Grade (opals are often referred to as being "Collection Grade").  Usually the difference between AAA and AA Is very subtle and so if you don't care, just go with what looks best to you.  The price is often quite substantial but the true difference is slight.

What the heck are Swarovski Crystals?
These are a brand name artificial crystals made in a factory.  More or less they are expensive glass.  Often they are given names akin to real gemstones such as emerald or topaz swarovski crystals, when they are actually not gemstones at all.  The only similarities are the color.  To me this is fraudulent and misleading.  if the crystal is red, it should be called a "red glass crystal", not a "ruby swarovski crystal".  The general public tends to think that they are actually buying a ruby, not a piece of glass.  the second problem with thesetypes of things is the internet search.  If you search for "Ruby Pendant on google, etsy, artfire etc...  most of the resultrs that come up are actually not rubies at all, they are swarovski.  To test my own theory, I just did a search on Etsy for "Ruby Pendant".  On the first page of results which had 40 items, only a few had actual rubies, the rest were "Crystals", "Red Glass", "Swarovski" and others which were tagged with "Ruby" to get more hits.  I am tempted to go around flagging things like this.