In the eyes of the little bug, looking at these opals up close, the surface of the gemstones was not very smooth. There were some very, very small potholes, as if raindrops had hit the sandy ground during a rainy day.
Looking inside, there were black specks of dust inside the gemstones. The biggest selling point of opals was that the gorgeous and varied colors were not gorgeous at all here. They were lifeless, as if they were inlaid patterns.
This was a feeling. If one looked at these stones after seeing many natural fire opals, it was easy to see the difference in the colors.
Also, natural fire opals looked the same inside and out. Even if the colors were not uniform, they had a very natural color transition layer. If one looked slowly along the opal, looking at it bit by bit, the color change would not be visible.
This was the function of the color transition layer, which perfectly connected colors of different brightness.
The color transition layer in these stones was very weak. On the outside, they looked either orange-red or bright red. The colors were very beautiful, but as one looked inside, the colors quickly faded.
The further one went, the worse it got. Some of the stones had no color transition layer at all, and there was a clear distinction between red and gray!
Looking at these stones, Li Du pondered for a while and determined what they were.
Just a short while ago, Owen had told him about the fake opals. These were the fakes.
Christopher was right. He was a rookie. If not for the little bug's vision, he would not be able to tell whether these gemstones were real or fake.
In fact, these gemstones looked very real from the outside. Even an expert would not be able to tell if they were real or fake without using professional tools.
Now that he had the little bug, Li Du could roughly determine their identity after carefully looking inside the stone. This was a Gilson stone.
Gilson stone was a type of synthetic opal that had been successfully synthesized in the 1970s by a French scientist, Gilson, in the laboratory. It could show a very similar color change to natural opal.
However, as Li Du had seen earlier, natural opal's color change was random and flexible, while synthetic opal's color change was often very sluggish. This was a very big difference between the two.
This difference was a little too subjective and completely depended on one's eyes and experience. In the European and American gemstone markets, subjective experience could not be used as official evidence.
Therefore, the appraisal organization had found a reliable method of identification, which was to use an instrument to magnify and observe. The front of the Gilson synthetic opal had lines that looked like snakeskin or lizard skin lines.
Li Du had previously seen the weak transition layer in these stones. The color connection was very stiff, which was the pattern in the Gilson stone.
After making the judgment, he wasn't particularly confident because the color of the Gilson stone was relatively thin and not so gorgeous.
After thinking about it, he decided to waste his energy to use the little bug's Time Reversal ability to see what was going on.
Using his special ability, scenes appeared one after another.
As he expected, this was a fake. Someone had made these stones in the laboratory, which were Gilson stones.
Then, someone heated up the stones and soaked them in some wine-red liquid. They took them out and dried them with the wind. Then, they continued to process them, finally forming the current appearance of the stones.
Li Du suddenly realized that these people were also very good at counterfeiting. They did not simply use Gilson stone, but carried out another round of counterfeiting on the basis of Gilson stone.
Based on what Owen had told him in the morning, he could easily determine the name of the second round of counterfeiting. It was called Fake Dyeing.
Fake dyeing was usually targeted at the more precious black opal. Using sugar solution to dye inferior white opal black, it was made into a brightly colored black opal for sale.
There were many types of opal: black opal, fire opal, white opal, gravel opal, crystal opal, and so on. Among them, white opal was the least valuable.
Because the raw material of white opal was generally white in color, had a lighter color change, and had more pores, it was easy to dye and became the raw material for counterfeiting opal.
Just like what Li Du had seen after Time Reversal, when dyeing white opal, it was first heated up and then soaked in sugar solution or high-sugar orange juice or grape juice.
After drying, it was soaked in a concentrated sulfuric acid solution to carbonize and turn the sugar black.
Christopher and the others were smart enough to infer the method of counterfeiting fire opal from the counterfeiting of black opal. This kind of double counterfeiting was much more realistic than simple counterfeiting, and even experts could make a mistake.
Unfortunately, these people had provoked Li Du and implicated him in this scam. Therefore, Li Du could not sit idly by and watch them do whatever they wanted.
Many of the gem hunters believed Christopher and his team because they felt that what he said was the truth.
Christopher's words were 40% true and 60% false. The part that was true was about Li Du, and everything else about them was false.
This way, if other gem hunters obtained this piece of land in the future and realized that they had been scammed, they would definitely find trouble with Li Du, thinking that Li Du had colluded with Christopher and his team to harm them.
There was no doubt that the Americans were that unreasonable.
Besides, Li Du was a little disdainful of such scams. You could use schemes, but everything had to be true, just like how he had obtained National Geographic.
These people had directly set up a trap to deceive people, and he hated scammers the most.
Beyond his expectations, Christopher and his team were much more ruthless than he had expected.
They had rented two hectares of land, but they had not simply auctioned off the two hectares of land. Instead, they had used a more powerful method.
Christopher said, "We will divide this piece of land into 20 lots of two hectares of land. Each lot is one-tenth of a hectare. Whoever is interested can come and buy a lot for 20,000 dollars. Whoever is willing can come and find me!"
There was an uproar among the gem hunters. Someone said unhappily, "Hey, bro, you're too greedy."
Christopher said coldly, "If you don't want to take the risk, then don't even think about making money. If it wasn't for the fact that someone spread the news that we found the gemstone pit, we could have made even more!"
A gem hunter in the crowd raised his hand and said, "Give me a lot. 20,000 dollars for a very reliable chance to take the risk. Why not? Guys, as long as we find a gemstone, we can earn it back! "
Someone else said, "I've asked Owen's employees. This morning, that Chinaman did sell him a lot of opals. If you don't believe me, you can ask him yourself!"
"I've also asked. He earned a lot of money from Owen!"
Christopher looked at Li Du fiercely and said angrily, "Was it you who spread the news about this gemstone pit? You b * stard, do you only want to earn money for yourself?! "
Li Du sneered. This guy was really good at acting. At this time, he still didn't forget to push the plot forward. Did he really think that Li Du was a pushover because he was Chinese?
The calm black man started to prepare to divide the two hectares of land. They were going to divide it into 20 lots and sell it one by one.
This way, they would only need to invest one or two thousand dollars and would be able to earn 200,000 dollars. The profit ratio was shockingly high!
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