Faceted blue dyed agate....made in Brazil

[bumblebee]

Common knowledge says that when an agate is covered with facets, that means it was ground by hand in Germany sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century.

I bought this 1.7" agate off eBay and its surface is covered in fine facets, indistinguishable from my larger German agates.

Seller had no clue when it was made.

My theories are:

1) At some earlier stage, or in some factories, agate makers in Brazil were using German-introduced techniques for making agate spheres, which aligns perfectly with the history of German agate making and immigration to Brazil.

2) Similar to the above, perhaps this is of earlier manufacture in Brazil and ones this size had to be hand-ground. They may have had machine-grinding for smaller ones but had to do the bigger ones by hand. I suggest this because I think we'd see a lot more smaller Brazilian ones with facets otherwise.