You are holding a stone that looks like gold. It has flat faces, it catches the light, and it feels heavier than it should. The question is always the same: is this gold?
Short answer: if the faces are flat squares, it is almost certainly pyrite. Natural gold is rounded, not square.
That is not a disappointment. Pyrite does something gold never does. It grows dozens of flat faces on one small stone, and every face throws the light back on its own.
A gold nugget gives you one soft shine. Pyrite gives you a hundred points of light that move as you turn it.
I cut and set pyrite by hand in my workshop in Tbilisi. Below is how to tell the two apart, and what those faces do once the stone is in silver.
What pyrite is
Pyrite is an iron sulfide: iron and sulfur, nothing else. It grows in flat-sided crystals, and the commonest one is a cube. The Handbook of Mineralogy describes its shapes as "typically cubic, pyritohedral, octahedral", which means cubes and two other shapes with flat sides.
| What it is | Iron sulfide, FeS2 |
| Shape it grows in | Cubes, with flat faces and straight edges |
| Hardness | 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale |
| Color | "Pale brass-yellow", sometimes leaning olive |
| Weight | Nearly twice as heavy as an ordinary stone the same size |
That hardness is the same as moonstone and labradorite, and harder than malachite, obsidian or lapis lazuli. For a stone that looks this fragile, it wears well.
Pyrite also turns up inside lapis lazuli, as the gold specks scattered through the blue. My article on lapis explains what those specks are doing there.
Five checks that tell pyrite from gold
The first four need nothing but your eyes and your hands.
1. Look at the shape
Pyrite's faces are flat and its edges are straight, and several usually sit on one small stone at different angles.
Gold does almost none of that. It turns up as rounded grains, and geologyin notes that it "rarely forms visible crystals" at all.
2. Look for fine parallel lines
This one is hard to fake. Pyrite faces carry fine parallel grooves, called striations, and the Handbook of Mineralogy lists them as a defining feature. On one stone, neighboring faces carry lines running different ways. Gold does not do this.
Tilt the stone slowly under a lamp and the lines light up one face at a time.
3. Compare the color to something you know
The Handbook describes pyrite as "pale brass-yellow". Gold reads as a "bright, rich yellow" in geologyin's words, warmer and slightly red.
Hold your stone beside a gold ring or a brass key. Pyrite looks cooler, sometimes faintly olive.
4. Weigh it in your hand
Pyrite's measured density is 5.018. Gold's is about 19.3, close to four times as heavy for the same size. A stone that feels heavy for a rock but not absurd is pyrite.
5. Test hardness in reverse
Pyrite is 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale. Gold is 2.5 to 3, softer than a copper coin, so the coin marks gold and leaves nothing on pyrite. Gold also dents where pyrite chips, and geologyin puts it in one line: gold "will deform but not break, while pyrite will break or crumble".
Do this on a loose stone only, never on a piece already set in silver.
Each check separates two different minerals, and neither answer is a disappointment. The same question comes up with black stone, and my article on obsidian sets out six tests that separate it from manufactured glass.
What comes next is the thing pyrite does that gold cannot.
Why pyrite catches light the way it does
A polished stone has one smooth surface, so it gives you one highlight that slides around as you move.
Pyrite is built differently. Every crystal face is already flat, and flat means mirror. The Handbook grades its luster as "metallic, splendent", which is the brightest rating mineralogists give.
Those faces sit at many angles at once. At any moment only a few of them point at your eye, so those light up and the rest stay dark. Move your hand and a different set switches on.
Two textures, both grown not cut
It shows up in two ways, and I set both.
Where the crystals grew large, you get flat squares a few millimeters across. Each one works like a small mirror: one face flashes bright while the face beside it reads deep olive. The raw pyrite necklaces and pyrite rings I make are usually this kind.
Small, tightly packed crystals do something else. Dozens of tiny faces sit side by side, and that reads as glitter rather than mirrors. It never sits still. My cluster pyrite earrings are this kind.
No cutting produces either one. Both grew that way.
Is pyrite magnetic?
No. Hold a household magnet against pyrite and nothing happens. Half the internet says otherwise, and there is a reason for that.
A very similar mineral grows right beside pyrite in the ground. It is called pyrrhotite, and it is also an iron sulfide. geology.com writes that "most specimens are at least slightly magnetic", and that after magnetite it is "the second-most-common magnetic mineral".
It is bronze where pyrite is brass, and it "is often associated with pyrite". People bring home both and assume they have one thing.
The same page settles the question in a single line: "No other brass-to-bronze-colored sulfides are magnetic."
What the magnet actually tells you
So a magnet is a real test. It just answers the opposite question from the one people ask. It does not confirm pyrite. It rules pyrite out.
One difference matters more than the magnet if you plan to wear the stone. Pyrrhotite is much softer, 3.5 to 4 on the Mohs scale. That is the difference between a stone that survives a ring and one that does not.
Why the faces stay as they grew
Almost every stone I set gets its shape from me. With pyrite I cut the stone to the size the piece needs and then stop. The faces stay as they grew.
The reason is simple. The flat faces are the whole stone. Polish them and you get one smooth surface with a single highlight, which is what you can buy anywhere. Keep them as they grew and you keep the mirrors.
So the work moves off the stone and into the silver. The Handbook lists pyrite's tenacity as "brittle", and that is exactly how it behaves on the bench. It does not bend, it chips. A crystal that stood in the ground for millions of years can lose a corner in one careless second.
The setting holds it from the edge
Because the faces stand above the rim, the setting has to hold the stone from its edge instead of wrapping around it. That is why my pieces use crowns of silver beads and prongs. They grip the outside and leave every face pointing out.
The silver is oxidized dark on purpose, so the brass yellow of the stone is the brightest thing on the piece.
Here is the honest half. A raw pyrite face is not a flawless gem surface. It has small pits, it sits at uneven heights, and it will never look machine made.
That is the point. Every face grew that way. The same thinking runs through all of my raw stone jewelry, and my article on moonstone explains why I stop before the polish there too. On amethyst the crystal points stay as they grew for the same reason.
Looking after pyrite
Pyrite needs one habit, and it is the same habit silver already needs: keep it dry.
The reason is chemistry. A conservation paper by two Field Museum preparators, hosted by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, explains that the reaction is "caused and accelerated by the presence of oxygen and water". The Handbook records what you would actually see: pyrite "tarnishes darker and iridescent", meaning it dulls a little and can pick up a faint rainbow sheen.
That effect is real, and it is also slow. Museums take it seriously because they store specimens for a hundred years in rooms they cannot control. The same paper puts the target at "less than 50%" humidity and calls "30%" ideal. A closed drawer in a heated room usually sits inside that range already.
Five habits, and that is all
So the whole of pyrite care is short.
- Take it off before water: the shower, the pool, the sea, the washing up
- Put it on after perfume, hairspray and hand cream, never before
- Wipe it with a soft dry cloth when you take it off
- Keep it in a closed box or pouch rather than an open dish
- Never use an ultrasonic cleaner, steam, or a silver dip. Dips are acidic, and geologyin notes that pyrite "reacts with acids"
You will notice there is no washing step in that list. Water is the one thing pyrite does not want, so the dry cloth is the cleaning.
What pyrite has meant
The name comes first, and it is the most solid piece of history this stone has.
Pyrite is named from the Greek pyritēs lithos, "stone which strikes fire". That is a description of a job rather than a symbol. Struck against flint or steel, pyrite throws sparks, and people used it that way for a very long time. At Barnham in England, archaeologists found fire-cracked flint handaxes and two fragments of iron pyrite at a spot where fires were lit again and again. That was about 400,000 years ago.
Much later it did the same job in a gun. Britannica describes the wheel lock, developed in about 1515. A holder pressed "a shard of flint or a piece of iron pyrite against an iron wheel with a milled edge; the wheel was rotated and sparks flew".
Antique "marcasite" jewelry is pyrite
Then there is the part that matters most here, and almost nobody knows it.
If you have ever seen antique "marcasite" jewelry, you were almost certainly looking at pyrite. The International Gem Society writes that "much of the material found in these antique jewelry pieces is actually pyrite". It adds that "miners called common crystallized pyrite gemstones marcasites until the 19th century". The same page gives the practical reason the trade kept using it: "pyrites have greater stability than marcasites for jewelry wear".
So pyrite set in silver is not a new idea. Victorian cutters faceted it flat and set it in bright white metal. I do the opposite. I keep the crystal faces as they grew and darken the silver around them.
Modern crystal writing links pyrite to confidence, money and protection. Those are beliefs rather than measured properties, and I am a stonecutter, not a healer. What I can tell you is what this stone has actually done. It made fire, it fired guns, and it has been worn in silver since the Victorians.
How I work with pyrite at Akra
My workshop is on Abano Street in Tbilisi, in the same place as the shop. Every piece is drawn, built and set there, in 925 sterling silver.
An earlier section was about what I do not do to the stone. This one is about what I build around it.
Look across the pyrite pieces and the silver keeps doing one thing: it grows. A band worked like a twig, with bark texture and small leaves set along it. A disc built from thin branches that spread out from the center and split again on the way, so the circle is never symmetrical. A pendant back that is not a solid plate but a branching pattern cut right through it.
That last one is worth stopping on. The open back faces the skin. Nobody sees it except the person wearing it. I cut it anyway.
The cord, and why it is not a chain
The cord is a decision too. Soft black cord instead of a silver chain, because a chain catches light of its own and competes with the stone. The cord lies flat and stays quiet, so the stone is the only bright thing you see.
And every piece is one of one. The stones are chosen one at a time, and because no two pyrite crystals grew the same way, no setting repeats exactly either. What reaches you will be close to the photograph and never a copy of it.
Everything currently finished is in pyrite jewelry, including the raw pyrite ring on a twig band.
If you are in Tbilisi, the workshop is at 13 Abano Street in the old town, and you are welcome to come and look at the stones in daylight.
Quick answers
Is pyrite valuable?
As a mineral it is common, and that keeps the raw material affordable. What you pay for in a finished piece is different. It is the stone that was chosen, the crystal faces kept instead of polished away, and the silver built around them by hand.
Is pyrite real gold?
No, and it is not a fake of anything either. Pyrite is iron sulfide, a mineral in its own right, and it grows cubes that gold does not grow. Gold is an element. The two look alike in a photograph and separate in seconds in the hand.
Does pyrite tarnish?
Slowly, in humid air. Keep it dry, wipe it with a soft cloth, store it closed, and it stays bright.
How hard is pyrite?
6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale, the same as moonstone and labradorite. It is brittle rather than soft, so a knock matters more than a scratch.
How do I clean pyrite?
With a soft dry cloth. No water, no ultrasonic cleaner, no steam, and never a silver dip.
Can I wear pyrite every day?
Earrings and pendants, yes. A ring meets more corners than anything else you wear, so take it off for heavy work with your hands.
