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<p>[QUOTE="Bronwen, post: 311797, member: 5833"]I hadn't heard of Gilson before so of course did a little Googling. They are credited with making opal simulants more like natural opal than any other. None of the photos I saw in connection with what I read showed material that looked like this IDed as Gilson. Theirs is quite a sophisticated process that produces stones with more color than this. It involves tiny 'spherules' inside, not flakes. I have also seen the 'lab opal' used in Native American work, own some. It too does not look like this.</p><p><br /></p><p>Maybe we are just defining what qualifies as an artificial opal differently? I would never mistake this pendant for any kind of opal, whereas some of the fakes, such as the ones in NA work, can be very convincing. If it doesn't look like an opal to me, I wouldn't call it man made/artificial/lab grown opal. And perhaps 'Gilson' has expanded to mean 'artificial' the way brand names have a way of generalizing, like kleenex & bandaid, & is no longer confined to actual Gilson products?</p><p><br /></p><p>Think we all agree that if the question 'is this a regular opal?' means 'is this a natural opal?', the answer is no.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Bronwen, post: 311797, member: 5833"]I hadn't heard of Gilson before so of course did a little Googling. They are credited with making opal simulants more like natural opal than any other. None of the photos I saw in connection with what I read showed material that looked like this IDed as Gilson. Theirs is quite a sophisticated process that produces stones with more color than this. It involves tiny 'spherules' inside, not flakes. I have also seen the 'lab opal' used in Native American work, own some. It too does not look like this. Maybe we are just defining what qualifies as an artificial opal differently? I would never mistake this pendant for any kind of opal, whereas some of the fakes, such as the ones in NA work, can be very convincing. If it doesn't look like an opal to me, I wouldn't call it man made/artificial/lab grown opal. And perhaps 'Gilson' has expanded to mean 'artificial' the way brand names have a way of generalizing, like kleenex & bandaid, & is no longer confined to actual Gilson products? Think we all agree that if the question 'is this a regular opal?' means 'is this a natural opal?', the answer is no.[/QUOTE]
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