How to distinguish crystal from glass and choose crystal glasses? How to distinguish crystal from glass - some practical tips

Crystal is a type of glass that contains at least 24% lead or barium oxide. Such additives provide, in the language of jewelers, a "play of light", as well as increase the plasticity of the material - all this makes it possible to cut and carve crystal. Such procedures allow the crystal, as well as precious stones, more fully express their beauty.

Crystal got its name by analogy with rock crystal, the name of which, in turn, is derived from the Greek word "crystallos", which translates as "ice". Probably, it was the purity and transparency of this mineral that inspired the Greeks with associations with ice. Rock crystal is a type of colorless quartz.

The creation of crystal was practiced in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia at the dawn of glassmaking. However, in its modern form, crystal was obtained only in 1676 by the English master George Ravenscroft.

What is the difference between crystal and glass

Crystal and glass are two materials that are made using completely different technologies and from different materials. It is these two factors that determine the differences between them, including in price categories.

Firstly, glass and crystal are different. Glass is warmer to the touch and heats up quickly in the hands, while crystal cools the skin.

Secondly, crystal is much stronger. It can be broken, but this is more difficult to do. When broken, glass shatters into large pieces, while crystal breaks into small pieces. Over time, scratches, cracks, tarnishes appear on the glass. This does not happen with crystal.

In addition, if you look at any object through the glass, the image will be slightly enlarged. Crystal will give a bifurcation of the object without magnification.

Finally, crystal, unlike glass, has a characteristic sound. Running wet fingers over it, you can hear a pleasant ringing. And when two crystal products touch, a long-sounding rumble is heard. The glass only makes a dull thud.

It is all of the above factors that make crystal an expensive collectible. In the manufacture of crystal products, they are always decorated with engraving, carefully polished and gold foil, etching or matting are used in their decoration.

Crystal can also be colored: red, green, purple, etc. But keep in mind that on the market, crystal is often replaced with ordinary glass, making skillful fakes that only a specialist can distinguish.

There are fairly simple and uncomplicated ways to distinguish crystal from glass. Differences can be found in external signs, you just have to take a closer look at the products. Even a simple person who does not have certain knowledge will cope with this task.

Instruction

So, there are several checks. One of them is the tactile method. Take crystal and glass and compare their temperatures. Crystal in this case, other things being equal, will be colder than glass. In the same way, you can use these two items. Start heating them up little by little and you will notice that crystal heats up slower than glass.

It is very rare to see any scratches on the surface of the crystal, because crystal very hard to damage. What can not be said about glass. However, don't think it's hard to break it, crystal not as strong material as for example diamond.

If about artificial crystal, then give it to specialists, let them make you a percentage. Crystal in this case should not have more than 10% lead, but glass, on the contrary, should contain no more than 4% of this substance in its content.

See what other objects look like when they are crystal or glass. Glass of uniform thickness can only slightly enlarge objects. In crystal, in this case, a very noticeable bifurcation occurs. All the above methods, in order to distinguish crystal from glass are not accurate, it is best to contact specialists working in this field.

Making Russian crystal

In Russia, crystal is produced by the Gus-Khrustalny factory, a well-known enterprise with a century-old history. Its crystal products are Russian artisans who have reached unprecedented heights in the manufacture of dishes, household items and stunning works of art. In Gus-Khrustalny, crystal was made by hand, using the centuries-old professional traditions of their predecessors in the process.

The products of the Gus-Khrustalny factory reflect all the beauty of primordially Russian values, customs and skill of glassblowers.

Today, the company is experiencing a serious crisis - after the collapse of the USSR, orders began to decline rapidly. At present, its activities are practically suspended, so the crystal produced by the Gus-Khrustalny factory has turned into almost antiques. It is especially popular with foreign tourists who admire the skillful crystal dishes made by Russian craftsmen.

The government plans to soon resume the work of the Gus-Khrustalny plant in order to resume great story Russian crystal. In the meantime, fans of beautiful and elegant things are left to admire "collectible" sets, Russian souvenirs, figurines, caskets, jewelry and other items made of crystal.

Crystal has long been associated with luxury and a high standard of living. It is impossible to imagine an expensive classic interior without a crystal chandelier. These lamps will never go out of style.

Let's see what is the difference between crystal and glass.

Crystal is much stronger than glass, so it is almost impossible to scratch it. Glass will fade over time and small scratches and scuffs will appear on it. Breaking crystal is much harder than breaking glass. When broken, crystal shatters into small pieces, glass breaks into large fragments.

Glass in the hands will heat up much faster than crystal, as these materials have different thermal conductivity.

In addition to quartz sand, lime and soda, impurities of lead oxide or barium oxide are added to the composition of crystal. These impurities significantly increase the light refractive characteristics, create the so-called "play of color".

Crystal cannot be called any glass with impurities of lead oxide. The content of these impurities must be at least 30%. If the oxide content is less than 30%, then this crystal glass, if impurities are less than 4%, then this is the most common glass. The characteristics of such glasses are significantly lower than crystal. Also, a high content of lead or barium oxides significantly improves the plastic properties of crystal. This is very important in the process of cutting and polishing crystal products. High-quality crystal is sometimes difficult to distinguish from precious stones.

If impurities of various metals are added to the molten crystal mass, then a very beautiful and spectacular colored crystal is obtained. For example, green crystal is obtained by adding copper, blue - cobalt, silicon gives crystal pink color and cadmium is red. Colored crystal elements are widely used for decorating chandeliers, sconces, floor lamps by Czech manufacturers Bohemia IVELE Crystal and .

When choosing a crystal chandelier, you need to take into account that often unscrupulous manufacturers replace crystal with the most ordinary cut glass. Only a specialist can distinguish such fakes. Remember, a crystal chandelier cannot be cheap, as the production of crystal is a very laborious process and requires a lot of effort. You can buy crystal chandeliers only from well-known, time-tested factories. When you see a chandelier that looks very similar to the original Czech product, which differs in price by 2 or even more times, be sure that this is ordinary glass, there is no high-quality crystal in it. Ask for product certificates.

The Kvadro Svet online store cooperates only with official suppliers of Czech crystal chandeliers. By purchasing a Czech crystal chandelier in our online store, you can be sure that you have bought exactly the original certified product.

You can buy a crystal chandelier in the Kvadro Svet online store without prepayment. Pay for the order upon receipt in all cities of the Russian Federation.

Guest article

If you have a lot of beautiful wine glasses and other inherited products at home, you probably wondered how to distinguish crystal from glass at home. If you break such dishes, it is easiest to do this - real crystal crumbles into many small pieces, but glass breaks into pieces. But it is unlikely that the knowledge that you have broken a quality item will add to your mood. So let's talk about how to deal with whole products that you can use for a few more years.

A sound that is difficult to confuse with something

If you tap the crystal lightly, it will ring. And this ringing will continue for some time after contact with the surface, as if it will hang in the air. Glass does not give such an effect: it sounds short, its ringing seems to be empty, not saturated, and it stops very quickly. Take a few different options dishes and listen to how they ring - even without an ear for music, you can very quickly detect the difference.

Also, the crystal can "sing" if you run a wet hand over it. But this method is not possible for everyone to implement. Take a wine glass, wet your fingers and run around the edges - if you're lucky, a beautiful sound will appear. Then you can be sure that it is definitely not glass in front of you, because it does not have such properties. But if the product is "silent", do not rush to get upset - there are other ways to make sure that you have a crystal thing in front of you.

The warmth of the hands: touching the dishes

Crystal differs in that it does not become warm for a long time in human hands. This interesting ability was even used in antiquity. The rich people of Rome held crystal balls to cool their palms when it was very hot outside. If you twist a glass or a vase in your hands for a long time, it still will not become very warm. Glass will show completely different properties: it will warm up very quickly, repeat the temperature of the hands. It is very convenient to carry out this experiment also in comparison. Take a product that is definitely made of glass and immediately hold it. Then do the same with the supposedly crystal thing. If there is a strong contrast, you will immediately notice it.

Light and color: another way to decide on the material

If you illuminate the products well, then you can notice various imperfections in them. Divorces that show how the material behaved before solidification, very small air bubbles - all this indicates that you have ordinary glass in front of you. Crystal has no such defects. Glass can also magnify an object when viewed through it. Crystal gives a bifurcation. But this is also not always easy to check, since patterns and drawings are often applied to the dishes - they already distort the image of the object, so it can be difficult to figure it out.

Use for definition and bright light. If you bring a crystal vase to the sunlight, you will notice that it will begin to shimmer very beautifully and incredibly. In the refractions of this game, you can also see different colors of the rainbow. Glass reacts to light more calmly and does not strike with such beauty.

Can crystal be cheap?

Price is another sign that can be conditionally added to those that we have already named. If a crystal glasses are suspiciously cheap, in front of us with almost one hundred percent probability is ordinary glass. Crystal has never been a cheap material. If you do not want to face a fake, purchase products only in stores that value their reputation or are official representatives of trusted brands. Then you can buy a thing that you are not ashamed to show to guests or pass on to your descendants.

Glass is, as a rule, an artificial material, because in nature it is formed extremely rarely, after such infrequent natural disasters as a volcanic eruption (volcanic glass) and a meteorite fall. In all other cases, the glass is of artificial origin.

Pure rock crystal is a kind of colorless natural quartz that has the shape of a hexagonal pyramid (icicle). Translated from the Greek "krystallos" - ice. Crystal is born in the cavities rocks("crystal cellars") and in the voids of lava deposits. But it also occurs in quartz veins (“crystal coffins”), limestone rocks and shale.
The largest mining sites for rock crystal are China, Brazil, Switzerland, Madagascar and Ceylon.

In Russia, the main sources of rock crystal mining are Yakutia and the Urals. There are rare varieties with inclusions of pyrite, asbestos and tourmaline. Rock crystal, found in Ukraine, has a smoky color. In the Carpathians, as well as in the Crimea and Yakutia, there are transparent, very clean, with two heads and a strong luster of crystals, which are called Marmarosh diamonds.

There is also the so-called artificial crystal - glass with the addition of lead in certain proportions. In each country, the allowable amount of lead, so that glass can be called crystal, is different. In Europe, for example, no more than ten percent, in the US - just one is enough. There are also such definitions as lead and high-lead crystal, which differ from each other by the percentage of lead content.

How to distinguish glass from crystal not in laboratory conditions and without gemological equipment.

The most important difference lies in this physical property like thermal conductivity. If you put your palm on the glass, it will quickly heat up and become warm. Crystal will remain cool no matter how long it is held in warm hands. In ancient Rome, the patricians even used crystal balls to cool themselves in the heat of their hands.

If you run wet fingers over the crystal surface, then a clear sound will appear, reminiscent of a ringing, but glass will not have such a “sound”.

Crystal, even processed, is harder than glass. Therefore, it will not be possible to detect various damages and scratches on it, even if you scratch it with a steel tool. But on the other hand, it can easily leave a mark on the glass, even with a slight impact on the surface. In order to break the crystal, some effort will be required.

But the presence of gaseous bubbles or foreign inclusions indicates that you have ordinary glass in front of you. Rock crystal, on the other hand, may include only cracks and turbidity.

During the production of glass, so-called striations are formed in it - lines along which a viscous liquid substance flows. When light passes through glass, these lines can be seen. You will not see these lines in crystal.

Glass has a uniform thickness throughout its surface and therefore tends to slightly enlarge objects when you look through it. Looking through the crystal, no changes in the size and shape of things are noticed.

Rock crystal has such a property as a strong bifurcation. For example, if you take a crystal ball and put it on the edge of a sheet, the edge will split in two. Such an effect certainly cannot be achieved by conducting this experiment with a glass ball.

Rock crystal has a high refractive index, due to which it differs from glass in a special brilliance in the light and play of color.

There is another important difference that glass does not have - this is a "crystal" ringing. If you hit two items made of crystal against each other (these can be chandelier pendants or glasses), you will hear a transparent, sonorous, long, growing resonant rumble that is not characteristic of glass.

If, nevertheless, you have any doubts, and it is necessary to establish the authenticity of the crystal, then it is better to resort to the help of an expert.

Rock crystal is a very beautiful transparent mineral. Jewelry, chandeliers, dishes, decorative interior items are made from it. It is believed that in addition to the decorative effect, it has healing and protective properties. In any case, its properties are unique enough to distinguish it from glass without analysis.

How to distinguish crystal from glass by eye

The first thing that should catch your eye when looking at fake crystal is the absence of any inclusions, air bubbles, etc. This is unusual, although rare. It is clear that an ideal stone will not be spent on the manufacture of an ordinary product. So a fake can be detected already at the inspection stage. If the piece of crystal is large enough, then it is worth looking through it at the light. When passing through a natural mineral, white light decomposes into colored rays. At the glass, the light remains white, which is visible to the naked eye.

The second thing to pay attention to is the temperature of the stone. To the touch, the natural mineral is cool and heats up very slowly, unlike a glass fake.

Crystal is a very hard mineral, in this parameter it is not much inferior to diamonds. So you can just draw a sharp edge of the product on the glass. Glass will not be able to scratch glass, and crystal will definitely leave streaks.

Crystal dishes are checked for sound. When the glasses hit each other, a long melodic ringing should be heard. In this case, you should not hit hard, because the crystal is very fragile and can break. Crystal makes a sound, even if you run a finger wet from water over it, so with such a check it will not work to pass off glass as crystal. In general, dishes made from natural minerals are traditionally left uncut, less often a simple pattern is applied. Crystal without decorations looks very rich, luxurious due to the colored reflections of refracted light. So the conciseness of the glasses is an additional plus in favor of the naturalness of the material.

How to distinguish glass from crystal in a chandelier

Crystal can become a real decoration of the room, as it radiates an indescribable radiance. If the buyer does not have sufficient experience to determine this radiance by eye, then one trick can be used. If you look through a quartz plate at any object, then its outline will split in two. This effect is due to the peculiarities of light refraction in natural material. Glass does not have this effect. So in this way you can check the chandelier right at the counter.

Technologies are moving forward, and only special gemological equipment can give a 100% guarantee of the naturalness of the material.