Treasure Hunting

It’s been a busy week for me and I haven’t had time to tag very many of my recent acquisitions so I was trying to do a little bit of that today.  I seem to put that task off a lot, but not because I dislike it - just the opposite.  It’s one of my favorite things to do so I try to save it until after I’ve gotten some other work done.

The photograph here is of some rough blue-gray agate from Brazil.  I’m in love with the coloring of this stone, but I am a big fan of darker blues.  A lot of times when I’m taking pictures of rocks, I’ll make sure they’re wet first so that the color comes through better - it also helps give an idea of what they will look like when polished.  But in this photo, the stones are completely dry and that blueness still stands out nicely.  I’m really interested in what type of hue the stones will take on when they’re polished especially since this batch of agate has some pieces with a lot of translucency.  There are a couple of rocks in the batch that I think would make gorgeous pendants.  I need to make sure I get my act together so I can get some of these things polished by Christmas.

I was talking to a friend about my amethyst geode from Brazil today and she asked if I had a photo. I said I was pretty sure that there was one on the Treasure Hunting blog, but when I went to look, I couldn’t find one. So I had to fix that!

This is one of my favorite mineral specimens. I keep it sitting on my desk right above my computer screen so I can see it while I’m working. It was given to me by friends who traded some of their Hallelujah Junction quartz crystals for a whole bunch of pieces from Brazil.

It’s a good-sized geode, about the size of a standard dinner plate. The amethyst crystals in the center are a pale lavender color and they sparkle beautifully in the light. The agate bands around the amethyst are several varying shades of purple, and some have a bit of a citrine tint.  I’ll need to remember to take a photograph of this geode out in the sun so the sparkling of the internal amethyst can be seen better.