Vintage Shooter Agates The Real Thing

[popeyecollector]

So much space is given to machine made marble names - why not look to hand made stone agates for a breath of fresh air?

Definition -- Chalcedony a hard stone deposit, usually formed into a

football size solid nodule or hollow geode by a long process of water

evaporation and a layered deposition of dissolved mineral impurities.

Common types are agate, carnelian (aka cornelian), moss agate and onyx

Onward --In my view agates that found their way into kids marble bags

or game boards were never larger than 3/4. (Cant grip with index finger

for shooting!) Some vintage eye candy faceted agates greater than 1.5

exist but most are contemporary. All German agate marbles were facetted

and probably more for eye appeal - dyed with sugar, sulfuric acid, arsenic

along with other nasty chemicals - then often exposed to UV light to

produced intense bands of black, yellow, blue, white and a rare green.

When geode - nodule supplies ran out in Germany - eastern Brazil had

plenty of exactly the same agate geode - nodules! -- (thanks to Continental

Drift) --

Beware of marbles made of lapis lazuli, tigers eye, moss agate, lace

agate, bloodstone or any other exotic mineral, they were probably

purchased at a gem and mineral show and slipped into the secondary

market or at least not made for a marble bag.

Spoiler Alert! Some years back -there were skillful grinders taking

orders to custom apply facets or ground pontils!

Some of the mineral information was taken from Wikipedia. Thats my story

and Im sticking to it!

Big Indian

[Steph]

Thanks!

Shooter agates are the symbol of marble play 100 years ago.