German Agate Marbles

[bumblebee]

Planning to at least put the big facts. So much is speculation that I'm not sure many will care to hear everything. 

• Nicknames
  • Aggies
  • Realers
• Manufacture
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• Types of Damage
  • Moons
    • A hertzian cone crack (the "moon" in a marble) forms due to intense contact stress when the agate marble strikes a hard surface. The impact creates a circular or cone-shaped fracture pattern beneath the surface, which appears as a white or cloudy crescent or circle when viewed through the translucent agate. This type of stress fracture is named after Heinrich Hertz, who first described the mechanical principles behind it.
  • Sugaring
  • Rough spots
    • Handmade agates begin with a worker chipping them into a rough sphere using a hammer. Sometimes the grinder, when faceting the surface of the marble, misses a small area of the original rough marble. These flaws are more common on the finer agates. It seems like cheaper, more flawed agates were fairly common.
• Dyed Banded Agates
  • Color Rarity
    • Carnelian red
    • Black
    • Brown
    • Blue
      • I find many more blue agates than green agates, although classic style blue agates with vivid white bullseyes are rare in my experience.
    • Green
      • Green agates in larger shooter size seem very rare. I just don't find them or see them, and when I do, it usually turns out that they are not faceted. That being said, they do appear in smaller sizes.
    • Grey
      • Grey is the natural color of untreated agate. I have only found one true bullseye shooter agate that is natural grey with true white bullseyes. On the other hand, solid grey agates
    • Yellow
      • A very rare color, likely because it would not be attractive due to the lack of contrast between the yellow and any bullseyes which would be white.
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