01Strong
Look for parallel fibres and a chatoyant sheen
Satin spar's silky lustre runs along the fibre direction and shifts as the piece is turned. A fingernail still marks it, and it still does not fizz, because it is gypsum.
Selenite · Lovenhall Stone
How to Identify Satin Spar
The fibrous silky form used for towers and lamps. What most 'selenite' actually is.
Morocco, Mexico (Naica), Oklahoma, Australia
Satin spar is the fibrous variety of gypsum, and it is what the overwhelming majority of 'selenite' products are made from — the towers, wands, charging plates and lamps. Its fibres run parallel, which gives it a silky chatoyant sheen along their length and lets light travel down a piece so that a lamp glows evenly.
Selenite proper is the transparent, bladed, glassy form. The distinction is real mineralogically and essentially ignored commercially, which is worth knowing only so that a buyer is not persuaded that satin spar is a rarer thing than it is. Both are gypsum, both are hardness 2, both dissolve in water.
The one practical point specific to satin spar is that its fibrous structure makes it prone to splitting along the fibres if dropped or if the surface is scrubbed, and the silky finish dulls permanently once wetted.
Model-specific checks
What decides a Satin Spar
These apply to this model and not to the rest of Selenite. Work them alongside the maker's general checks, not instead of them.
The market
What a Satin Spar does on the secondary market
Very cheap. Towers and plates from a few dollars to low tens by size.
An orientation for honest, unrestored condition — never an appraisal, and never a quotation.
Questions we are asked
- Is satin spar the same as selenite?
- Both are gypsum, but they are different varieties. Satin spar is the fibrous, silky, translucent form used for nearly all towers, lamps and plates; selenite proper is the transparent bladed form. The trade uses 'selenite' for both, and mineralogically the distinction only concerns habit.
- Can selenite go in water?
- No. Gypsum is slowly soluble in water, so washing a piece etches and dulls the surface, and prolonged contact degrades it. Dust it dry, and keep it out of bathrooms and off windowsills where condensation collects.
All the Selenite checks
Free tools of the room
Lovenhall StoneRead the stone itself
The 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.
Free on iPhone & iPad. An estimate, never an appraisal.
Or write to the house