Ametrine and those pesky russians

[Barrett]

40%-50% of all Ametrine on the market is synthetic. There is only one company in the world that you can buy Ametrine from that without a doubt will be real Ametrine! The only other way is if your stock is pre-1994(technically) but more like pre-1998. Don't fool yourself with the whole...'I got it from so-and-so and I trust them"...or .."so and so said it was natural". You must send it off to a lab to determine if it's synthetic or not and even then they sometimes have a hard time distinguishing the real good syn.(present day) from the natural. Unless you bought it direct from the only operation that mines true ametrine or have pre-1998 stock then there is a 40%-50% chance that your ametrine is synthetic.(there are also a couple companies and dealers that buy large stock from Minerales Metales del Oriente but the farther down the line you get from those secondary entities the more likely syn. ametrine gets slipped in and the more likely that 50% applies to you.)(the biggest thing I see is.."I bought it in Tuscon from someone who bought it in Bolivia or Brazil...pfftthh)...so..thats were the majority of syn. ametrine goes and it's for that exact reason so it can get sold to suckers to flip at the big gem shows in the states.
The problem is most think their ametrine is natural(I see it all over the net)...well were the heck is the 40%-50% synthetic at? I mean everyone thinks theirs is natural..it's a lot more prevelant than you think and after they cob it from the blocks their is no way to really tell.
It's the one stone I see over and over that a majority of the people think theirs is natural...if statistics say 40%-50% are synthetic then statistically speaking 40%-50% of the people are wrong or 40%-50% of the people have synthetic ametrine.

1994 was the first commercial mass production of synthetic ametrine in russia.

Do you know how much was produced that first year? 220 pounds or 100 kilos....thats 500,000 carats of ametrine!!!!!!

Now they can and do produce 300kg's of synthetic ametrine in 2-3 months!!! This was a year or two after operations got ramped up. Thats 660 pounds. Thats 1.5 million carats in 2-3 months!!!!!!
At the same time from 1989 to present(G&G 2011)..thats 22 years..the real ametrine mine in bolivia (anahai) has produced(this is the high number not the low of 20million cts.) 40 million carats. In that same amount of time(1995 to present hich is 6 years less time) synthetic ametrine from that one russian lab would have been made at 96 million carats. Thats way more synthetic ametrine than natural but the figures and experts say only 40%-50% is synthetic even though the numbers say more than 75% should be synthetic!

 

[pregcurious]

Are there any vendors you can recommend?

 

[Arkteia]

Very interesting... how high is the chance of buying a synthetic amethyst?

 

[T L]

Very interesting... how high is the chance of buying a synthetic amethyst?

Unfortunately, there is a ton of hydrothermal quartz on the market. I think, but do not quote me on this, that some, not all, natural quartz has zoning. Yes, most ametrine is synthetic, but it's also relatively cheap (as is the real thing), so if you do get stung by obtaining a synthetic ametrine, there's not a lot of money at stake, like if you were to buy a CZ, instead of a real diamond. To me, most ametrine is not very saturated, and only a phenomenon gem (half/half color), so I'm not that excited about purchasing it, real or synthetic. Always beware of blue ametrine as that is definitely synthetic.

Always buy from reliable and reputable dealers, like Gary Dutton, who sells lots of beautiful natural mined amethyst.

 

[Pandora II]

That's interesting. I'd heard that it was more like 90% of what was on the market was synthetic.

Synthetic amethyst is also out there and it's pretty hard to ID without lab tests (spectrometry in particular) if there are no indicative inclusions as they are now making the stuff so that it has the same Brazil law twinning as the natural. Hence the interference looks almost the same. Sadly, the lab test costs as much if not more than the stone...

Is this the same with the synth. Ametrine?

 

[Barrett]

Pandora, the 40%-50% I pulled from a G&G article..thats the only concrete number I could find..who knows..it could possibly be more.

 

[mus]

Reputable vendor: http://www.gemfacetingrough.com/ametrine/