Real faceted Citrine has the
color of sparkling white wine.
Notice there is a grassy green
undertone in Citrine.

What is Citrine 
and when is it not Citrine?

There is a lot of confusion about what Citrine is these days and is often confused with the Cairngorm gemstone and Smokey Quartz but how do you know what to look out for when buying a piece of jewelry with a so called Citrine gemstone. Well, there are a few things you should know but let me just give you some examples of Citrine jewelry.
Citrine is a type of quartz and is a beautiful pale lemon color and best described as the color of sparkling white wine.

Sterling Silver Citrine Brooch
from the Victorian era.
http://etsy.me/1yBOmMe

You can get orange Citrine as the natural Citrine gemstone differs from the very pale almost white tone to an orange tone. The most popular and commonly used is the pale lemon Citrine gemstone as shown above.

Victorian Agate brooch with
central Citrine gemstone

Citrine is very popular in the use of jewelry in Scotland even going back to the Victorian era and indeed popular worldwide. The Victorians wore Citrine brooches which were quite often set with local Agate. This type of jewelry was called "Pebble Jewelry".

Edwardian Gold Bar Brooch
Circa 1905 -1910
http://etsy.me/WmXbM8

The Edwardians wore bar brooches set with Citrine stones and the Scots wore Kilt Pins decorated with Citrines.


A genuine Citrine is quite sought after these days but many pieces of jewelry on the market these days are actually not real Citrine but Burnt Amethyst. While Amethyst is still a gemstone it is cheaper than Citrine which is why Amethyst is heated to a certain temperature until it turns yellow. It is then sold as Citrine.

Burnt Amethyst Gemstone
set in a gold ring circa 1970s.
http://etsy.me/1oRbyPx 

To the untrained eye Burnt Amethyst looks like Citrine but there are signs if you know what to look for. The color of Burnt Amethyst just isn't as good as the real Citrine gemstone. Burnt Amethyst has a very flat color with no depth to it and has a very definite yellow to orange tone. Then there's the yellow banding. The yellow banding is produced during the heating process of the Amethyst when the purple color turns to yellow

Burnt Amethyst which
clearly show the banding.

Amethyst plate which has
been split in two with the
right side heat treated and
then put back together to
shown the difference in color.

Close up of banding in
heat treated Amethyst.

If you look at the gemstone through a magnifying loupe and hold the gemstone to the light you will more often than not see yellow banding. If you see the banding then this is a definite sign that the gemstone you have is Burnt Amethyst and not Citrine.

Of course you may not actually have a gemstone at all and what you may have is glass made to look like Citrine or paste.

Victorian Scottish Brooch
with Faux Citrine set in Silver.
Notice the bright orange color.
http://etsy.me/1kCRUp0

Paste stones are easy to tell as the faceted lines are not sharp but rounded and chip very easily. They will not have that sparkle that a genuine Citrine does. Glass on the other hand is very convincing and takes some spotting to tell the difference. Look at the stone through a magnifying loupe and look for bubbles. If you see bubbles it's glass.
A genuine gemstone will have a definite structure and in this case the structure of Quartz.

Smokey Quartz Gemstone
Has a brownish tone.
http://etsy.me/1lc4MT9

A similar gemstone to Citrine is Smoky Quartz which has a mid brown color. See example. Then there is the Cairngorm gemstone which also looks like Citrine but has a slightly darker and has a brownish tone to it but not as dark as smokey Quartz. The Cairngorm gemstone is namely from the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland. If the gemstone is not from this mountain region then it is not a Cairngorm stone. It's that simple.
I see so many gemstones passed off these days as Cairngorm stones and Citrine stones when they are either smokey Quartz or Burnt Amethyst or even glass. Jewelry with very small stones set into them are difficult to examine and therefore very difficult to determine what they are. There is no miracle machine these days which will tell you exactly what the stones are. Even the best gem tester on the market today; a Presidium Duo Gem Tester will only differentiate between Quartz and glass and won't tell you if the stone is synthetic or not, let alone if it is a Cairngorm or Burnt Amethyst. The use of a Dichroscope can help you get quite far with identifying gemstones but stones already set in jewelry can be very difficult to examine through the light to get clear results.

So when you go to buy a piece of Citrine jewelry ask if it is Burnt Amethyst and if the seller doesn't know what you are talking about then it is perhaps better to shop elsewhere.

At the end of the day if the stone in the piece of jewelry you are buying appeals to you then go ahead and buy it as long as the price reflects what its true value is.

Author: Angela Zwartjens from Belmont and Bellamy
Seller of Antique & Vintage, and Scottish Jewelry located in Scotland
https://www.etsy.com/shop/BelmontandBellamy
Genuine Citrine and Faux Citrine: http://etsy.me/1zQVpC2