Black with grey-white radiating clusters — cristobalite starting to crystallise out of the glass.
Iceland, Mexico, Oregon, Armenia, Turkey — anywhere rhyolitic lava cooled fast
The white flecks in snowflake obsidian are spherulites of cristobalite, a silica mineral, that began to crystallise out of the glass as it slowly devitrified. The pattern is therefore a record of the glass ageing, and it is one of the more reliable indications of natural origin, because it requires geological time.
Look closely at a snowflake under a loupe. Each one should be a radiating, slightly fuzzy cluster of fibres growing outward from a centre, with an irregular boundary against the black glass. Painted or printed imitations produce flat, sharp-edged white spots with no internal radiating structure, and they repeat in a pattern.
The snowflakes also sit at varying depths in the stone, some cut through by the polished surface and others visible faintly below it. Surface-applied imitation sits entirely on top.
These apply to this model and not to the rest of Obsidian. Work them alongside the maker's general checks, not instead of them.
A genuine spherulite is a ball of fibres growing from a centre, so it has visible radial structure and a soft, irregular edge under magnification. Flat white dots with hard edges and no internal texture are applied, not grown.
Natural spherulites are distributed through the mass, so a polished surface cuts some in half and leaves others as ghosts just below. Everything sitting exactly on the surface means paint or print.
Cheap. Tumbled pieces and beads for a few dollars.
An orientation for honest, unrestored condition — never an appraisal, and never a quotation.
Lovenhall StoneThe tests tell you what it is. The instrument reads a photograph and offers a name to start from — then hands you back to the tile and the coin, which are what settle it.