So yesterday my neighbor Jim suddenly asked me where to get good fire quartz for his meditation space. Honestly? I knew nothing about rocks back then. Figured why not learn together? Grabbed my notebook and headed straight to the jewelry district downtown.
The First Shop Disaster
Walked into this fancy-looking shop with velvet displays everywhere. Told the lady I wanted fire quartz. She points at these sad little pebbles – murky brown like dirty dishwater. Charges 70 bucks each! Yeah right. Walked out faster than I came in.
Figuring This Out Step-by-Step
Decided to actually touch and compare stones properly. Visited three more shops, felt like a damn detective:
- Shape matters: Found triangular points naturally stick out better. Saw some man-made rounded ones pretending to be real. Not fooling anyone.
- Color check: Held pieces against sunlight. Cheap ones look like weak tea – watery and thin. Good ones? Deep, fiery red like molten lava trapped inside.
- Heft test: Weighed similar-sized stones on a shopkeeper’s food scale (he hated that). Real quartz felt solid – dense like carrying a tiny brick. Fakes? Light as plastic toys.
- Patterns: Stared under a loupe until my eyes crossed. Saw crazy storm-like patterns swirling inside authentic stones. Fakes had boring stripes painted on.
- The cleavage trick: Learned this the hard way. Gently tapped a corner of a questionable piece against a counter. Chip flew off like dry plaster. Real quartz? Damn thing scratched the granite instead.
My Lightbulb Moment
Found this tiny shop owner grinding stones himself in back. Explains each one while wiping dust off his glasses. Picks out a raw chunk the size of a thumb – all jagged points and angry color. Taps it with his hammer. Clink sound rings clear like glass. Showed me internal rainbows under his flashlight. Paid cash immediately.
Jim’s happy with his rock now. Me? I’ve got quartz chips all over my damn car seats. Worth it though – next time some shop tries selling me brown glass for $100? Hell no.