# Schweroffski Crystal Jewelry **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 10, 2001, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schweroffski-crystal-jewelry/92646 "2001-11-10T17:39:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![don\_willard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@don\_willard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_willard)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2001, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schweroffski-crystal-jewelry/92646/1 "2001-11-10T17:39:57Z")
I can’t remember how to spell it, but are those gems called swairoffsky crystals A) cut from clear quartz or B) cut from clear glass? Schwerovsky. Schwerovski, that’s it! And I know glass is quartz, but it is melted quartz which destroys the crystal structure. Or are Schwerovski crystals cut from synthsized quartz CRYSTALS? Which would mean they are crystalline not amorphous, like glass. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2001, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schweroffski-crystal-jewelry/92646/2 "2001-11-10T17:45:57Z")
[That’d be Swarovski crystal](http://www.swarovski.com). > [@](#): > > Swarovski crystal is manufactured at our traditional production location in Wattens, Austria, using a set of very strictly controlled operations. The exact mixture of quartz, sand, and minerals and how much of each ingredient is used is one of the key secrets that the company pioneer Daniel Swarovski passed on to his three sons. Does that help at all? ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2001, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schweroffski-crystal-jewelry/92646/3 "2001-11-10T17:48:49Z")
Some other quotes: > [@](#): > > There are two basic kinds of crystal - rock crystal and man-made. Rock crystal is the common name for the mineral quartz, a semi- precious stone that occurs in nature. Man-made crystal is produced from a mixture of quartzsand, soda, potash, and lead oxide. Swarovski is a man-made crystal. Oddly enough, rock crystal has nowhere near the color brilliance of manufactured crystal. > [@](#): > > Swarovski crystal is made at the factory in Wattens using basic formulae perfected by Daniel Swarovski and his three sons in the earlier part of this century. Swarovski crystal is fired using a combination of natural minerals and quartz sand, and then cooled slowly to avoid stress and inclusions. ---
**Author:** ![don\_willard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@don\_willard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_willard)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2001, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schweroffski-crystal-jewelry/92646/4 "2001-11-10T18:48:45Z")
So it must be glass. Notice that the Swerovsky statement doesn’t make it clear that the crystals are literally crystals. It is legal to call glass crystal because of common usage, I believe, as in lead crystal for cut glass bowls, which are glass. If the Swerovsky gems were crystal they would make that fact as clear as their gems by saying that they CRYSTALLIZE this sand and other ingredients and then CUT their gems from the CRYSTALS that form in the furnace. Then the gems would be from real CRYSTALS. Sythesized or man-made-out-of-crystallizing-actual-elements ARE much better than the gems from actual elements that have crystallized in nature. For example, you can take some aluminum and some oxygen. You let the aluminum powder fall through a flame and it combines with oxygen to form a big crystal from which you can cut gems. By adding a little of this and a little of that, you can get every shade of color of sapphire and ruby, and sell it cheaply. (If it is cut well it costs more). Some kind of similar process or maybe just making a silica solution is done with quartz to make clear quartz crystal stones, and with a little of this and that other element added, colored quartz which is called amethyst, citrine, smoky quartz, green quartz, and ametrine. Amethysts are now mostly synthesized, not cave found, or I miss my guess, and I think most of those ametrines are also man-made or synthesized used to be the term. However, the term synthesized has been taken to include simulating gems, for instance coloring glass purple to imitate amethyst. This glass “amethyst” is not a synthesized amethyst, it is glass. Almost no jewellers or dealers understand this difference but they are legally bound not to lie if someone asks if a stone is glass. They have to look it up in a book or in whatever the jewel came in and there will be a chemical description or something.