You might have already noticed that there has been massive growth in the handmade gemstone jewelry market. With the growing popularity of websites like Etsy, the number of both designers as well as jewelry collectors has grown exponentially and big box stores have definitely taken notice of this opportunity for them to also cash out on this trend. About a year ago, I went to my local big box store to pick up a few necessities and was shocked to find a huge wall display full of what looked just like the handmade gemstone jewelry that was selling like hotcakes on Etsy. At first, I thought that maybe this big box store was expanding their product line to include handmade, one of a kind jewelry, but when I looked closer, I could see right away that what they were selling were actually low quality knock-offs. So to help you better understand how to make informed buying decisions, here are my top three things that I look for to see if a gemstone is real:
You often get what you pay for.
Gemstones are not cheap, so if the jewelry piece that you’re looking at is the same price as a similar piece that is made out of plastic, chances are that they might both be plastic. In this particular case, the original necklace that was being sold on Etsy was $50, while the one at the big box store was only $8, the same price as all of the rest of the plastic jewelry that was on display near it. Big box stores sell items in large volumes, which often allows them to sell them at lower prices than small retailers, but still, $42 is a very big price difference especially if the item is supposed to consist of a material that has a general market value such as natural gemstones. With current gold prices skyrocketing, if you saw a gold bracelet normally being sold in a reputable jewelry store for $500, you would naturally be suspicious of a similar bracelet being sold for $50, so I believe that the same rule applies here.
Gemstones are heavy, so weight can be an indication whether it is real or not.
This tip is a tricky one because sometimes, extra embellishments on the piece such as metal parts can make the jewelry piece heavy, but try to hold the item in a way where you can feel the weight of the gemstone only. Plastic is known to be lightweight, so especially with bigger pieces, there should be an obvious difference compared to a gemstone piece. Gemstones are essentially rocks, so you should expect them to be somewhat heavy.
Gemstones are one of a kind.
Most natural gemstones have inclusions and unique characteristics, so if you see several pieces that look exactly the same, it is almost guaranteed that they are manmade of synthetic material.In this case, the jewelry piece became popular because it featured a raw crystal that was very close to its natural form from a gemstone mine. Since crystals occur naturally, they vary greatly in shape, size, and clarity, so it is extremely difficult to find two that look almost exactly alike. On the display at this store, they had ten pieces that were identical, which would be pretty much impossible to find in nature. It was obvious that those particularly pieces were mass produced in a factory.
Interestingly, when I looked closer at the back of the label of this jewelry piece, in very tiny print, there was text that said, “manmade stone.” So I guess you could say that this big box store wasn’t purposely trying to be misleading since they were telling customers that it wasn’t made of natural stone (to be honest, I don’t know if they should even say “stone” since it was obviously made out of plastic.) However, if you are looking for real gemstones, here is a quick recap of what to look for:
- a decent price for the market value of gemstones
- some weight
- unique characteristics
Do you have any thoughts or questions on this topic? If so, leave me a comment below!
