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Garden Quartz: Navigating the Stitch-Glued Secrets of the Mineral Market

Geposted von Ali Tesh am

 Overview:

Chemical formula: SiO2; Silicate

Hardness: 7

Rarity: Common; can be expensive for very high quality specimens or additional inclusions with other minerals such as rutile, epidote and tourmaline 

Colors: Green, red, brown, pink, purple, black, grey

Coloring comes from various inclusions such as: Chlorite, Hematite, Magnetite, Feldspar and can contain other trace amounts of minerals.

Garden Quartz can be found in other Quartz varieties like Smoky, Clear, Citrine etc.

Trade names:

Lodolite, Garden Quartz, Shaman Quartz, Chlorite Quartz, Dream Stone, Phantom Quartz

Locations: Mainly Brazil and Madagascar but can be found wherever Quartz is found.

What are Stitch Glued Specimens?

Stitch gluing is the act of attaching separate pieces of minerals together with resin or industrial adhesive. They can attach slabs of various materials together, cut and carve them into whatever shape they want. This is done commonly in towers or pendulums (typically are meant to represent the different chakras) example pictured below:

Picture courtesy of Earthbound Trading Co

 

Here's a few tips on how to tell if your Garden Quartz is stitch-glued:

With technology advancing, lab grown and enhanced crystals are becoming advanced as well. Lab grown seeded chlorite inclusions can now be added to Quartz typically through a process called stitch gluing. Chlorite is lab grown, sometimes having dramatic dyes like yellow and red added, then attach it to Quartz with resin or industrial glue. The most common shapes you will see of stitch-glued Garden Quartz are spheres and cabochons
Look for dramatic coloring. Fakes tend to have bright, artificial colors like bright pink, red and yellow. This can sometimes be tricky since Garden Quartz can naturally have these colors so don’t solely base it off that  Examine how the inclusions sit within the crystal. Most inclusions are spread throughout the Quartz while lab grown tends to sit more on one side/one half of the crystal. This is a clear sign of stitch gluing

 

All pictures below are enhanced Garden Quartz and not 100% natural: 

 

 


Notice something in common with all of these spheres? The dramatic contrast of “chlorite” on the outside of the sphere is not natural. Conveniently it will usually be half or close to half of the entire structure of the specimen.

 

Examples of Lab Grown Chlorite Cabochons:

These can sometimes be trickier to decipher because some of the coloring used can have naturally occuring hues.

Below are pictures of grown & dyed Garden Quartz:

Pictures above courtesy of Mindat.org discussion forum "Garden Quartz aka Phantom Quartz/Lodolite: fake?" from user Karen VC
 

Most have a telltale sign on the backs. Solid patches, like the one pictured below, on the back are usually not natural. However, because cabochons are generally much smaller in size compared to spheres and towers, it can be hard to distinguish what was cut from a larger natural chunk with a chlorite patch and what is lab grown.

 Below are Examples of Natural Garden Quartz

Notice the backings above are more subtle and patchy. This is how natural chlorite looks when cut. The bottom left (B3910) is an example of how it can be difficult to tell sometimes since the entire back is covered similar to fakes

Pictures by Gemstonepoint on Etsy

Towers are less commonplace for this type of stitch gluing to occur. Take note again of the patchy pattern, this is an example of what an outer layer of what natural chlorite patches looks like

Nice blending and variation on the edges where the Quartz and Chlorite meet. There's no harsh lines or unnatural coloring



Most natural Chlorite inclusions are subtle and not as intense as the previously shown altered spheres (above is natural)

 

Garden Quartz Patterns

Below are examples of how chlorite can form in unique patterns. This is one way to avoid fakes because these patterns are hard to replicate, for now.


Picture from Jibrilgems on Etsy

This type of pattern is where Garden Quartz gets the 'Phantom Quartz' trade name. This shading of chlorite creates a ghost-like, wispy, phantom look. Usually this pattern starts off dense and tapers out to the rest of the specimen but sometimes these can occur by themselves in subtle standalone streaks.

 

 

Picture property of MOSAIC Lille

 

Picture property of crystal_lab1011 on Ebay

 

This type of pattern is also marketed as 1000 Layer Quartz. It's extremely hard to replicate and notice how although they are heavily chlorite included they dont have solid pacthes on the outside.

 

Popular Inclusions:

This practice can be seen with other minerals such as Pyrite and Rutile.

Pyrite:

Pyrite does NOT form like this naturally within Quartz, let alone perfectly on top of Chlorite in Quartz. 

 Rutile

 

Picture property of crystalwholesaleusa.com

 

Picture above is natural. I believe most rutilated stitch-glued Garden Quartz do contain natural rutilated quartz but the chlorite is not natural. That’s not to say rutile can’t be faked-that’s a whole other blog post

Garden Quartz, Malachite & Azurite:

 

 

This one is pretty obvious and while I do think it's pretty, it's definitely not real. As far as my knowledge goes, it's not common to find chlorite with copper ore deposits. If it does occur the Azurite and Malachite would be displayed in their typical formation shapes and the chlorite wouldn't manifest the way the pictures above show.

 

 Below are examples of natural Malachite and Azurite geodes. This would be a more typical formation and any Chlorite included would be in patches/small splotches

 

 

 

Why is this practice so rampant? A few possible reasons. There is an ease and undeniable volume in the producing of cabochons. As for the spheres it does seem like more resources, power and time are required to make it than carving natural Garden Quartz. However, one pro for wholesalers that produce these specimens is they charge the same, if not more, for these spheres than natural high grade Lodolite Quartz. Another reason for the flood of this type of stitch-glued Quartz on the market is amateur crystal & metaphysical shops trusting their wholesalers on face value. Many wholesalers are in it solely for financial gain and not out of passion. New shops that are not educated enough on minerals, common market place scams and are also only in it for financial gains are susceptible to falling for this trick. In turn selling them undisclosed as altered to consumers in droves. Additional issues can occur when purchasing from overseas wholesalers that are not fluent in your language. I have seen many innocent mix-ups of mineral names due to language barriers and translation errors.
Buy from reputable shops, familiarize yourself with natural specimens and play it safe by avoiding heavily artificial colored looking Garden Quartz and be very cautious around spheres and cabochon shapes. 
If you enjoyed this post or can think of additional useful information please comment below! See you in the next one

 

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