Crystal Jewel Fever
It is a good idea to practice the principle of Buyer Beware while shopping for crystal gem stone jewelry. The term is used to market all kinds of decorative pieces that do not necessarily qualify as being real gold or silver gemstone jewelry.
For instance when you go to any department store you will see all kinds of pieces of glass and plastic marketed as crystal. This is not the real thing. These are pieces of stone. Most quality crystal is not found in the costume jewel section of your store. Instead it is found in the precious gemstone section.
Formerly the term crystal gemstone jewelry only used to refer to gemstones that are single crystals such as diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires. It did not refer to gemstones that are rocks such as lapis lazuli, opals or turquoise. The difference between a crystal and a rock is that a crystal is a stand-alone stone whereas a rock is comprised of a different number of crystals. For instance a piece of agate could contain quartz crystals and iron ore crystals at the same time. Real crystal gem stone jewelry contains single stones that have a precious quality.
Sometimes you will see advertisements for Austrian crystals. Austrian crystals are often made of glass. For instance amber Austrian crystals are not usually made of amber. Sometimes they are single quartz crystals that have been dyed another color but usually you are just buying sparkly bits of man-made glass.
Yet another phenomenon that is very interesting is the marketing of glass as crystals or gemstones. For instance you will see a yellow stone of some kind marketed as amber or citrine but then when you talk to the salesperson or read the fine print you see what the mean is “amber colored crystal” or “citrine colored crystal.”
One of the biggest and most common shopping mistakes you can make when shopping for crystal gem stone jewelry is to mistake glass for real gemstones. However this frequently happens due to hard sells from celebrities pushing this type of thing on home shopping networks. Sometimes Austrian crystal necklaces are gorgeous but the price you pay for them is often as high as what you would pay for a real strand of beads or cabochons made from a fine gemstone.
You should be particularly careful that you are not buying little chips of glass when you are shopping for earring studs or tiny dangling earrings. These are often marketed as crystal when really they are something lab created or much more inferior.
Mind you if you cannot afford the real thing these crystals look really flashy and great on your cocktail ring finger!