[meteorite-list] Moldavite Update

[JKGwilliam]

Thanks for the interesting follow-up.

During my scuba diving years, I collected Japanese glass net floats.  The 
majority of them made after 1945 were made of recycled Coke bottles left 
behind by USA occupational forces.  I've heard recently that counterfeit 
floats have been showing up on the market made from the same bottles.

Since moldavites are made basically of the same material as green pop 
bottles, checking the refractive index of a faceted stone wouldn't turn up 
anything suspicious.  There is so much counterfeiting going on in the gem 
stone industry these days that legitimate dealers are constantly looking 
for new technology to tell the difference between the fakes and the real 
stones.

Caveat Emptor is sound advice in ALL businesses these days.

Best,
John Gwilliam

At 01:23 AM 7/21/2005, Jeff Kuyken wrote:
>G'day Folks,
>
>Some of you will remember the questionable Moldavite auction mentioned
>earlier in the week. Well after speaking with mineral dealer today I
>discovered that it may be what is being termed as "1st Generation" Moldavite
>fakes coming mainly from China. The scary thing is that there is now
>apparently a "Gen 2" which are very difficult to pick from the real thing
>(although someone with a lot of Moldavite experience may not have so much
>trouble.)
>
>And to top it all off, the Gen 2's are now also being faceted into stones
>which are virtually impossible to tell from the real thing. Caveat Emptor.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Jeff
>
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