How to identify cinnabar
In the colorful world of antiques, curios, and jewelry, cinnabar jewelry is deeply loved by the public for its unique color and profound cultural connotations. However, the current cinnabar jewelry market is a mixed bag, making it difficult to distinguish genuine from fake items. This often makes many consumers feel concerned when making purchases, fearing that they might buy counterfeits. Therefore, it is of great significance to master some practical and effective identification methods.
### I. Check the Color and Luster
- **Genuine Cinnabar Jewelry**: The color of natural cinnabar is rich and natural, commonly seen in bright red, vermilion, or dark red. Jewelry made from high - quality crystal cinnabar, when caressed by light, will present an extremely vivid vermilion color, emitting a dazzling adamantine luster, shining brightly like the brightest star in the night sky. More importantly, the color of genuine cinnabar jewelry is highly stable. Even after long - term wearing or storage, it will not fade easily, always maintaining its inherent beauty.
- **Fake Cinnabar Jewelry**: Fake cinnabar jewelry often overdoes it in terms of color, appearing overly bright, giving an unnatural and even glaring impression. For example, those fake cinnabar jewelry dyed with chemical pigments have a uniformly rigid color, completely lacking the vivid and changeable color gradations of natural cinnabar. Some fake cinnabar jewelry is made from other red ores as substitutes, and their colors lack the unique charm and soul compared to genuine cinnabar.
### II. Sense the Weight and Texture
- **Genuine Cinnabar Jewelry**: Cinnabar has a relatively high density, approximately between 8.10 - 8.20g/cm³. This makes genuine cinnabar jewelry feel noticeably heavy when held in the hand, as if holding the weight of history. At the same time, its texture is relatively brittle with a low hardness. The Mohs hardness is approximately between 2 - 2.5. Gently scratching it with a fingernail may leave a faint mark. Take jewelry made from mirror - like cinnabar as an example. Its texture is as delicate as fat, and when touched by hand, one can truly feel its unique smooth texture, as if having an intimate contact with a masterpiece of nature.
- **Fake Cinnabar Jewelry**: The texture of fake cinnabar jewelry varies greatly depending on the manufacturing materials. If it is made of plastic or resin, it is light and soft, feeling weightless in the hand. If it is made from other ores as substitutes, its hardness is quite different from that of genuine cinnabar, and the feeling when scratching is also distinct. For example, fake cinnabar jewelry made from red clay or red stones has a rough texture, which is worlds apart from the delicate touch of genuine cinnabar.
### III. Distinguish the Craftsmanship Details
- **Genuine Cinnabar Jewelry**: Regularly made cinnabar jewelry is exquisitely crafted. For cinnabar beads, the perforated parts are usually smooth and free from obvious flaws. The carved patterns have smooth lines, and every detail is handled perfectly, demonstrating the superb skills of the craftsman. Moreover, in processes such as inlaying, genuine cinnabar jewelry is made quite firmly, and there is no need to worry about easy loosening, allowing the wearer to confidently showcase its unique charm.
- **Fake Cinnabar Jewelry**: Due to cost and craftsmanship limitations, fake cinnabar jewelry often reveals many flaws in craftsmanship details. For example, the perforated parts may be rough and uneven, with burrs, giving a very unrefined feeling. The carved patterns have rigid and inflexible lines, lacking aesthetic appeal. The inlaid gems or accessories may be precarious and likely to fall off, and the overall workmanship appears rather rough, forming a sharp contrast with the refinement of genuine cinnabar jewelry.
### IV. Smell the Odor
- **Genuine Cinnabar Jewelry**: Natural cinnabar itself has almost no obvious odor. Even after being polished and processed into jewelry, it remains basically odorless. If you get close and smell carefully, you may detect an extremely faint earthy smell, but it is so faint that it can almost be ignored, like a wisp of imperceptible breath in the wind.
- **Fake Cinnabar Jewelry**: Some fake cinnabar jewelry, due to being made from synthetic chemical substances, emits a pungent smell. For instance, fake cinnabar jewelry made by mixing chemical pigments and low - quality resin has a strong chemical reagent smell. This pungent odor stands in sharp contrast to the odorlessness of genuine cinnabar, making it easy to tell the difference with just a sniff.
### V. Use Tools
- **Strong - light Flashlight**: Shining a strong - light flashlight on cinnabar jewelry is a useful trick for identification. Due to its unique crystal structure and composition characteristics, genuine cinnabar will appear semi - transparent under strong light, with clear and natural internal textures, as if it were a natural scroll. You can also see some natural impurities or growth marks, which are the imprints left by time. In contrast, fake cinnabar jewelry, when illuminated by strong light, is either completely opaque like a lifeless stone, or its internal structure is uniformly without textures, or the textures are too regular and unnatural, clearly showing signs of artificial fabrication.
- **Magnifying Glass**: By carefully observing the surface of cinnabar jewelry through a magnifying glass, the surface of genuine cinnabar will have some naturally formed pits, textures, and a granular feel. These are unique marks left during its long natural formation process, with every detail telling the wonder of nature. The surface of fake cinnabar jewelry may be overly smooth, like an over - embellished fake, or it may have obvious signs of artificial manufacturing, such as air bubbles and mold textures, which are all tell - tale signs of their falsity.
### VI. Chemical Experiment (Not Recommended to Try Lightly)
- **Genuine Cinnabar Jewelry**: The main component of genuine cinnabar is mercury sulfide, which decomposes into mercury and sulfur dioxide under high temperature. When a small amount of cinnabar powder taken from cinnabar jewelry is burned over a fire, the genuine cinnabar will first turn black and then miraculously return to red after cooling. This is because mercury sulfide decomposes into mercury and black sulfide when heated, and then recombines into mercury sulfide after cooling. However, this method is somewhat dangerous. It may not only cause irreversible damage to the jewelry but also produce harmful gases. Therefore, it is generally not recommended to try it lightly, unless you have professional equipment and protective measures.
- **Fake Cinnabar Jewelry**: Fake cinnabar jewelry, due to its different composition from genuine cinnabar, behaves quite differently when burned. For example, fake cinnabar jewelry made from red lead will turn yellow after burning and will not return to its original color, like the embarrassment of a lie being exposed. Fake cinnabar jewelry made from plastic products will melt, emit smoke, and produce a pungent smell when burned, as if loudly proclaiming its false identity.