And I do mean a MYSTERY -- the past few months have found me scouring books on rocks and semi-precious stones to no avail.
When I received an order from Fire Mountain Gems in January, I was so excited to discover just what would be in a large assortment of cabochons. I was able to determine all of the others but the majority of the stones I received were those pictured here.
I emailed Fire Mountain Gems to see if they could answer my riddle. The first contact thought the stones might be brown zebra stones. The second response was certain they were red "malachite". After researching both suggestions, I doubt seriously these stones are either of these.
Thoroughly frustrated, I began to wonder if the wood-grain appearance was a faux finish. So, being a good detective at heart, I took a hammer to one of them and sure enough, the surface grain runs straight through the stone.
If anyone has any idea what these stones are, I would love to hear from you. In the meantime, I am still trying to puzzle out just what to do with them!
9 comments:
On my screen the cabs look pink - so my guess is rhodochrosite. Hope that helps!
Cindy
There are a whole slew of jaspers out there that are banded... it could be a jasper.
Thanks,Cindy -- they are definitely not pink, more like reddish-brown to yellow-brown in color.
Thank you, Barbara -- it would be great if these are indeed jasper.
Kathy V in NM
They look like Jasper to me as well. Love your blog and the name too! Found you through a link in Another Country Beadworks on Etsy. I look forward to following your blog. Have a look at mine: http://muse-on-a-wire.blogspot.com
Good luck with these cabs.
Cyn
Kathy,
I love stones and at one time could just look at a stone and know what kind it was. My first guess was a jasper too. I did a google search and found a slap of stone that looks like your mystery stone. Depending on how they cut the the stone it greatly changes the appperance of the finished cabochon.
http://ravenmoonlight.com/catalog/product_info.php/manufacturers_id/12/products_id/1261
I can't speak to the stone discussion, but I can say I'm happy to learn you have a blog for your art!!! Fun.
Off to read more posts.
Thanks, everyone -- the stones seem to definitely be jasper. Found some "antique" jasper on Lima Beads that resembled my stones a lot.
Have set myself a challenge to use them in my current BJP pieces which are woefully behind . . .
I just came across your blog, and I am posting about the stones, they do indeed look like jasper to me, and they are definitely NOT rhododendron or (rhodochrosite) the look like an assortment of butter and red jasper. If you go to rock-hound state park down by Deming (in New Mexico) you can find tons of this same stone :) you can find it both banded and un-banded with different colors of jasper, and with agate also. Hope this helps some.
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