Zambian Hematoid Citrine Polished Standing Crystal Point - 112mm, 255g

Locality – Zambia
Size – 112 x 55 x 25mm
Weight – 255g

This Zambian polished citrine features rich, golden yellow colour with reddish-orange hematoid staining and bright, silvery veils scattered within, along with some small and unusual dendritic inclusions in its side. It has been expertly polished to a tabular, sharply terminated crystal point and cut to stand proudly as an attractive decor piece. There are a few small natural surface indents caused by the crystal growth, though these do not detract from its overall aesthetics and are a unique feature of the stone. All of our citrine crystals are specially selected, genuinely natural, non-treated specimens.

Citrine is the yellow variety of quartz, coloured so by natural irradiation or inclusions of aluminium or iron. It's name is derived from the Latin 'citrina', meaning 'yellow', in allusion to its typical colour. Some of the finest citrine comes from Lwena, D.R. Congo, showing rich colour and stunning turreted formations of cascading crystals. Natural citrine is extremely rare, and almost all of the citrine available on the market today is faked (read fakes section below for more information).

Quartz is the most common mineral found on the surface of the Earth, occurring in virtually every locality. Pure crystals are colourless, transparent and hard, though many are coloured by natural processes such as irradiation or by the presence of certain elements within. These coloured varieties include the popular gemstones amethyst, purple quartz, and citrine, yellow quartz. Some quartz crystals have unique inclusions of minerals that have grown within them, such as golden rutile, tourmaline or chlorite, and others may show silvery reflective internal veils and bright rainbows. Whilst the majority of quartz is created from molten magma that has cooled and crystallized, much quartz also chemically precipitates from hot hydrothermal veins. Well-formed crystals deep within the Earth can reach colossal sizes, with some measuring several meters in length and weighing hundreds of kilograms.

Unfortunately, almost all of the 'citrine' available on the market today is heat-treated amethyst, being one of the most extensively faked crystals in the world. Virtually all these fakes originate from Brazil where so much amethyst is produced that large quantities of it is baked and sold as citrine in an attempt to market it a different product. These fakes can be easily recognized by their intense golden orange or dark reddish-orange colour and are identical in crystal structure to amethyst, in a geode or 'dog-tooth' formation with a milky white base; natural citrine does not form as geodes. Natural citrine is very rare, if a seller does not explicitly state that their citrine is natural and non-treated, or if it is being sold cheaply in a gift shop, it is almost certainly a fake.