The Low Down on Crystal, Part 4

How Can I Tell if It’s Glass or Lead Crystal?
Part 4 of 5 part series on understanding crystal as a material

There are kits you can buy that can test for lead content. However, there are ways to guess without such a to-do:

By sight: Just by looking you should be able to distinguish. The lead in crystal makes it incredibly clear and gives it a tell-tale rainbow spectrum sheen; when you turn a piece of crystal about in the light, small glimmers of color appear. Glass will not have that rainbow sparkle or the simple clarity of crystal.

By touch: Another way is to feel the weight of the piece of crystal in your hand. Crystal is noticeably heavier than glass. You might not expect it, but intuitively, you probably have a good sense for how heavy glass should feel—think about how many glass jars, bottles, and cups have you held in your lifetime. So, you should be able to gauge if that amount of material in your hand weighs as much as, or more than, what that amount of glass would weigh.

By sound: This is mostly a trick for glassware, since small crystal beads don’t make a strong sound when you tap at them, but this would likely work for larger, thinner pieces of chandelier crystal or glass. Just give it a flick with your finger or tap it with something—if it is crystal, the noise it should make is a reverberating and clear “clink” or “ting.” If you end up with a thudding noise, or really a “tunk” that does not reverberate, then you are holding glass.

By very fun destruction: Also, crystal is more durable and does not fracture into as many pieces as glass, so if you have an extra piece to smash up, this could be a good test to see how it breaks. If it breaks into 2 or 3 clean pieces, then it’s probably crystal, but if it shatters into several pieces and small shards then it’s most likely glass.

If all else fails and you really cannot figure it out (i.e. if you’re blind, deaf and armless), then you should go ahead and purchase a lead-detection kit (and have someone with appropriate physical means help you with the process). Kits come pretty cheap, I’ve seen some for about $13.00, so if you want a definitive answer there is that option.