Red beaded necklace.. stone or glass ? TIA

Hello,

The beads are cold to touch and they tests as quartz/amethyst/citrine on Presidium tester.. I'm pretty sure they are not amethyst or citrine, but I have no idea what they might be.. the clasp is marked 925. Could you please shed some light ? Thank you !

 

Does that say China?

 

No, that's the spring for the clasp.. but the clasp looks Asian..

 

Yes, it does. Thanks.
@evelyb30 @Hollyblue might know the stone

 

Most likely carnelian, a Chinese favourite and the same hardness on the Mohs scale as quartz/amethyst/citrine.

 

Maybe, but doesn't seem to have the see throughness of carnelian. Looks more opaque like that goldstone - not sure that is the right name. It's orange with gold speckles.
Think I need a vitamin E. Words aren't there this morning.

 

That is the right name. Goldstone is in fact glass, so I think the hardness is lower than 7, which quartz/amethyst/citrine are.

 

I'm surprised that with that nice sterling clasp that has the additional safety catch the beads were not knotted. Afraid that despite the Presidium reading I see glass here.

 

Just throwing this out there ...
I've seen red jasper pieces that appear to be close in color to your beads. What I can't see in your photos is the veining that I usually associate with that stone.

 

The made a lot of necklaces like this back in the 80s. The stones were jaspers, etc and often dyed. These might be rhodochrosite but smart money's on the jasper or what I call RDR (Random Dyed Rock). The beads usually weren't all that expensive.

 

What kind of veining?The OP's stone could be carnelian or sard ... https://sedagems.com/blog/gemstone-information/sard-sardonyx-carnelian/

 

?? A pattern of lines that run through what I know as red jasper.

 

Sometimes it is solid. Don't know how rare/common unveined specimens are.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/230969

 

These beads have some orange speckles in them, but they are not shiny like goldstone..

I agree that Presidium is not always very reliable, but usually when it's glass, the needle doesn't move at all.. for these beads, it goes all the way to quartz/amethyst..

I don't see that either..

Random Dyed Rock describes them very well and covers all the bases..

On the link you posted, it says that sard is a variety of quartz, so that might explain why Presidium goes to quartz ??

I like the "hunt" for finding interesting items, but I hate the "homework", sometimes it's really difficult ..

Thank you, everyone, for all your help !

 

In the beginning there was quartz.

Macrocrystalline quartz. Amethyst (purple), citrine (yellow), rose quartz (pink), rock crystal (colorless). I sometimes see jewellery using something labeled as 'green amethyst'. To me this is an oxymoron but perhaps it's made by applying some treatment to amethyst. Most deeply colored citrine available now started out as amethyst.

Microcrystalline quartz.
Chalcedony. Translucent. Pure form a milky white/grey/blue/lavender. Orange/brown material called carnelian (US)/cornelian (everywhere else) or sard. Sard is darker than cornelian but where the line is drawn is subjective. I reserve 'sard' for stone that is much darker brown than these beads. Some of it looks black until you put a light behind it. Chalcedony is porous & has been dyed since at least Roman times.

Jasper. Opaque. Any color. Solid, banded, speckled, mottled. Bloodstone/heliotrope, deep green with red speckles, is a jasper with a commonly recognized name of its own.

It surprises me that the Presidium generally gets no reading for glass. After all, it is not chemically very different from quartz. Does your machine register anything softer than the quartz family of minerals?

 

My diamond tester has a tough time with cabochon stones. Maybe the fact that they're beads is the problem?

 

Sometimes it goes to glass if it glass, but sometimes it doesn't move, I have no idea why.. ? For example, I have (at hand) this necklace with obvious green glass (even for my untrained eye) and the needle doesn't budge..


I'm sorry, but I don't know what is softer than quartz, I know close to nothing about stones (that's why I have a Presidium).. here is what it supposedly reads..

 

So glass is the softest material it measures. You could not successfully test something like alabaster. I have no idea why glass does not always register. Perhaps evelyb has the right answer, that it depends on shape.

I do not understand why chrysoprase, which I should have added under jasper, would come out with a different reading than the other quartzes. Cornelian isn't there at all, even though it is probably one of the most common semi-precious stones used in jewellery. Would it test in the quartz range or the chrysoprase range? Why would aquamarine test differently than emerald? Where is zircon? (And cubic zirconia?) And what the heck is CAL, way up there near the border with diamond? I definitely wouldn't rely on this contraption for the definitive identification of anything, although perhaps it is useful in suggesting directions for research.

 

The "CAL" is for calibrating the probe/machine before testing a stone.

 

Ah. Thank you. Do they provide a stone you use for this?