Is My Shungite Real? Four Checks You Can Run at Home
A large share of the shungite sold online isn't shungite. Not because sellers are all crooks, but because the supply chain is long and almost nobody down the line can tell the difference. Here is how to tell — on a piece you already own, whoever sold it to you.
You need a AA battery, a small torch bulb or LED, and two short pieces of wire. That is the whole kit. Genuine shungite has one property that fakes almost never reproduce, and it takes about thirty seconds to check.
It carries a current
Shungite conducts electricity. Almost no other stone does — that is the single most useful fact about it. Run a wire from one battery terminal to the bulb, and a second wire from the other terminal to the stone. Touch the free leg of the bulb to the stone about a centimetre from the wire. On genuine shungite the bulb lights, sometimes faintly.
On dyed stone, resin, or shungizite: nothing at all. There is no partial pass on this test.
One caveat — heavily polished pieces sometimes need a firmer contact, because polishing leaves a thin sealed layer. Press harder, or try an edge or the unpolished base.
It is never flawless
This one surprises people, because it inverts what you would normally look for. Natural shungite is around 30% carbon and the rest is largely silicate — mostly quartz, with pyrite scattered through it. So a real piece shows things:
- Fine gold or brassy flecks and threads — that is pyrite
- Pale grey or white veining — that is quartz
- On raw pieces, occasional light orange surface rust, because pyrite oxidises in air
A piece that is perfectly, uniformly, glossily black with no variation anywhere is not a better specimen. It is the classic signature of stone that has been dyed, or of moulded resin.
Raw pieces mark your hands
Rub a raw or unpolished piece firmly between your fingers. A faint grey-black carbon trace comes away. It washes off with water and it stops after the stone has been rinsed a few times.
Nothing comes off a painted stone — paint is the opposite of friable. This test only applies to raw and tumbled stone. A polished pyramid not marking your hands is expected behaviour and proves nothing either way.
The price and the paperwork
Classic black shungite is not especially expensive — it is mined in commercial quantity and a decent raw piece costs a few euros. Elite shungite is a different matter: it is rare, sold by the gram, and genuinely costly.
So a listing offering large, cheap "elite" shungite is the easiest fake to spot. There isn't enough of it in the world for that price to be real.
And ask for the certificate. Genuine Karelian material is certified — ours under GOST R 53603-2020, certificates 0291380 to 0291383, valid to 29 July 2028. A seller who cannot produce a number is asking you to take their word for it.
What the fakes actually are
| Sold as shungite | What it is | How it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Shungizite | A related Karelian rock with far less carbon | Does not conduct; often lighter and more porous |
| Dyed stone | Ordinary basalt, slate or agate, coloured black | Does not conduct; suspiciously uniform; dye can come off on a cloth |
| Resin composite | Moulded stone powder in resin | Does not conduct; unnaturally light for its size; often a visible mould seam |
| "Elite" that isn't | Any shiny dark mineral | Real elite is silvery-grey with a metallic sheen, not glossy black |
If your piece fails
It is not necessarily worthless — a nice black stone is still a nice black stone. But it will not do the things shungite is bought for, and you should tell the seller and ask for a refund. Most marketplace listings are drop-shipped by people who have never held the product and do not know what they are selling.
What we would say if you tested ours and it failed. Send it back and we will refund it, and we would want to know which batch it came from. That offer is only cheap to make because we buy direct from Karelia and know what is in the box.
Notes
Carbon content figures for classic (type III) shungite are around 30% by weight; elite (type I) is approximately 98%. Conductivity is a property of the carbon phase, which is why it is the most reliable field test. Certification referenced: PromTechStandart voluntary certification, GOST R 53603-2020.