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[blvirginia]

I’m new to this board so please bear with me as I figure out the process. I did do a search on this material but nothing came up unless I did it wrong. Sorry to repeat a subject if it has been brought up before.

I recently purchasedt a blue flower agate slab off of Etsy. The material looked like it had to be dyed. The Etsy shop owner checked with their supplier][/s]and said it was not. So I went ahead and bought one to see for myself.

I marked out a piece I could use cut it off and the color and pattern went all through the slab. I even took that cut off and split it to get 2 preforms. Again color and pattern were continuous. So my questions are:

1) Does the continuous nature of the color and pattern through the slab virtually guarantee that this is natural material? I’m just paranoid enough to wonder if there is a pressure dyeing process that can infiltrate deeper.

2) Do any of you have knowledge that this material is valid?

3) Is a newbie allowed allowed to ask two…..strike that…three questions at once?

Also, I tried to post a pic but couldn’t downsize it enough. I’ll get that figured out. The material in question is now visible in numerous Etsy sites.

Thanks ahead of time.

Adding photo as I think I got it figured out. Pic is the cut surface.

[lithicbeads]

Dye can penetrate deeply in the porous layers in an agate . Your piece looks a bit odd but it is such a small piece of the original stone that looking for meaningful variations in color opacity is meaningless. If any bit of your stone is crystalline quartz as distinguished from the microcrystalline agate you have a method of determining if it is dyed. Agates like this often have a crystalline core meaning the crystally in the quartz are visible. That is NEVER the same color as the surrounding agate unless the surrounding agate has no color at all. The crystalline center may have  some natural purple if there is an amethyst component but that is rare and is clearly purple not blue. I have been told that the store rooms of finished agate goods in China reek of the smell of bubblegum as they often use the same dyes on agates.

[blvirginia]

Thanks lithicbeads! Here is another pic of a bigger cross section. Maybe it gives a better impression of dyed or not.

[R.U. Sirius]

This looks natural to me, both the shade of blue and the distribution of colour.

Reminds me of Ellensburg blue agate.

[blvirginia]

I’m concluding the same. I have a hard time believing that someone could dye and get the variations in the blue while maintaining unaffected areas such as the white and quartz. Doesn’t seem that the blue has pooled anywhere either. Other pieces I have found online do have some of those characteristics so buyer beware. None of the regular dealers I use (and trust) have this material so that was an additional worry on my part. Supposedly this material comes from Madagascar.

[lithicbeads]

Not dyed.