Curved cream bands wrapped around a honey-colored center, like the stone grew in rings and somebody stopped it partway through. Look close and there are fine dark threads running along one of the bands. This one's already gone to a new home, but I liked the photo too much not to share it.
If you tumble or do lapidary work: hand-collected Flint Ridge flint from Ohio, sold by the pound. Rust, gold and pale glassy pieces, all breaking in those sharp conchoidal curves flint is known for.
This one has gone to a new home, so it's no longer available. Tan-green chalcedony with the red jasper veining that gives bloodstone its name, collected on a Northern California beach. There are more pendants in the shop.
It took millions of years to turn a tree into stone, and the grain made it through all of it. Long, narrow, grey and tan, hung from a brass-tone bail. Hand-collected from the beach.
Milky from one angle, nearly clear from another, with soft cloudy patches inside that seem to drift when you tilt it. Silver-tone bail, silver chain, and plenty of stone to look at.
Brown and cream bands that don't run straight. They swirl and double back across the stone like someone dragged a brush through wet paint. Polished smooth, brass-tone bail, 20 inch black cord.
Banded stones are the ones I cannot walk past. Polishing brings every layer up at once, and direct sun does the rest.
The one at the top is honey-colored, and the sun found every band in it.
Some stones have a little room inside them. A pocket of tiny crystals, a clear patch where the polish lets you look down into the stone, a vein that cuts straight across. These are the ones I keep picking back up.
The big white stone at the top has a window of tiny crystals along its upper edge and fine banding around the rim.
Sunlight is the honest test for a polished stone. Under a lamp, most of them look fine. Put them in direct sun and you find out what they have really got. These are the ones that lit up.
The stone at the top: rust and orange swirls with a couple of little bullseyes near the edge, and a polish that holds the light like glass.
