Lapidaryforum.net
Rock Art => Carvings and Sculptures => Spheres => Topic started by: Ryaly2dogs on April 30, 2020, 10:54:43 AM
-
Unknown material sphere consisting of red tiger eye (color change to yellow), yellow jasper, and some white splotches. All the reds (except a few dark spots only) in the photo are chatoyant and change to yellow, some of the yellow is a standard tiger eye, the rest is a mottled jasper. Search me for a name for this? Any ideas? Maybe just a jumble of stuff mixed together?
Almost threw this pseudocube into the "return to earth pile" when I noticed some unexpected chatoyancy. Was fun to see it progress into a sphere.
-
Do you know where it is from? Looks like binghamite, which is the state stone of Minnesota. Some of it has more chatoyance, but not all. Nice sphere, good you didn't throw it in the pile!
-
More than 40 years ago a lot of rough was exported from South Africa and much of it was not standard tigers eye. I haven't heard of containers of rough from there in at least 30 years.I think it could be one of their mixes.
-
Thanks to you both for your insights on this. I followed each of your thoughts and found on the internet some lower grade red pietersite that looks similar, but I am thinking the Binghamite may be correct after reading up on it and looking over some images. I polished up an area around the red coloration and saw some silvery hematite in the mix which seems to cinch the knot.
Yes, looking at prices, very lucky I did not toss this piece put!
-
That's a beautiful sphere, and I agree with Binghamite. The lighter cream areas may very well be silkstone which is found with Binghamite.
-
Seen similar spheres on ebay listed by Chinese dealers as pietersite