Dragon skin quartz materiel

A lot of bead quartz materiel is turning up designated as “Dragon
Skin.”

It’s obviously a treatment of some kind. Does anyone have any
about it. Is it dyed?

I would like to know more about this so called Dragon skin quartz. I
bought some a couple of years ago from a dealer at a gem show. I
asked him whether it was died, or natural, and he said he did not
know, nor did he know the country of origin.Hehad purchased them fro
m another dealer who was equally ignorant as to their origin or
treatment.

I got several flat, oval shaped beads, drilled lengthwise. They were
about 18X25mm, and fairly thin, about 5 or 6 mm thick. They ranged
in color some a pale turquoise, some aqua, others more ivory,and
some more pinkish. They were smooth on the surface, fairly
transluscent, and had a wonderfully interesting webbing underneath
the surfa ce–almost a crackle look. As I don’t do much beading,
Imade some stepped sterling bezelsso that they would be open at the
back.This solved the problem of setting stones which are not flat on
the bottom,and which would rock around if placed on a sterling back.
After I made the bezel, I soldered a square sterling wire inside for
a seat, and set the stones.

I made I made them into bracelets, pendants, and some earrings. To my
delight they all sold, but to my dismay, I don’t have any more. T
hey were interesting to work with, andsold well. Customers were
intrigued by the webbing in each stone.

Alma

I got some large pieces of that a couple of years ago. I was told it
was rainbow agate. I have since found it called Dragons vein agate.
It comes out of China and I believe it is dyed. Does that help?

Aileen Parmenter
www.aileensart.com

What I have been told is that it is the center of a geode. Some
centers are hollow, and this is where Amethyst and druzy’s come from.
When it is solid but uniform and grayish, it is chalcedony. But when
the metamorphic process happened, the crackle effect is when there
was a large amount of liquid in the mixture. My theory is that a rock
starts out as jasper, there is a volcano, said rock is thrown up in
the air coated with lava, it is now heated to about 1200 degrees, the
minerals of the jasper are broken down into bands and colors. Now
they are metamophically changed from jasper to agate. Like most great
theories, it can not be disproved. There are other ways that geodes,
thunder eggs etc can be formed, this is just one of them.

The crackle agate (Dragonskin) that I have comes in it’s natural
state an off white. It is easily dyed and very fashionable. It is not
a stable agate because of the nature of the stone, I have had agates
break just at the line of junction. I love agates, each layer
has a name and a history.

Other than what I’ve just looked up on ebay, I’ve never seen dragon
skin quartz. Back in the 90’s there was a rough floating around
called snakeskin agate. Is it possible that the stones you are
looking for is nothing other than snakeskin agate, renamed and
repackaged? To make it look new and exciting.

Sincerely
Tom and Donna
http://www.Gemoriah.com

I have some cabs that are a green and red jasper. I was told by the
seller that they were Dragon Skin jasper. They are not crackled, or
translucent, they’re opaque. I have seen crackled agate beads called
dragon skin, reported to be a pale carnelian that was dunked in oil
while heated to produce the crackle effect. They’ve gone under the
name, Crab Fire Agate, among others which I can’t recall at the
moment. They are orange and white.

Vicki K, SoCal

Hi,

I have several kilo’s. It is quartz. The outside ‘skin’ looks
frosted and in a scale pattern like a snake or lizards/dragon. I can
get more. It comes from India. I can send photos if you like.

This is my first year with an office in Jaipur India. I’m seeing a
lot of interesting goods I’ve not seen at shows.

Eddie Cleveland
KashmirBlue

Many of the pendants I have been getting have the crackle, and are
being called drusy’s The process of causing the crackle interests
me, as does dying. You can not truly understand the market unless
you understand what humans are able to produce. There is a crackle
in the natural geode (thunder egg) process, it is pretty and it is
easy to dye. Chalcedony is the paler agate that is really easy to
dye because it is a greyish cream color. The dragon skin I bought
has ranged from blue, green, yellow, orange and a vibrant red. Done
well they are beautiful.

I just bought a drusy pendant that is black, with a strong band of
white and the bottom half looks just like an orange slice with the
membrane peeled back.

Dear Eddie, could you send me some photo’s and prices, I am
interested in it in the raw. Also any you can come up
with on the dying process. I was told that you can set it in sugar
water, then when it 'relaxes" then you can dye. India is amazing,
they are great at primitive methods of stone enhancement. Blessings
pat

I have a bunch of it in the “Raw”.

I have always heard it called snake skin agate but it seems to be
the same thing.

Actually I have come to this thread late so maybe this info is
tardy. Anyway, I have some and am interested in dying/treating it
also. I may be able to send samples to someone that needs it for
dying or other treatment if that would help?

Hope this helps
Sam B

Does anyone know of anyone that dyes chalcedony black here in the
states? I have had it done in Germany in Idar-Oberstein but would
like to find someone dying by a permanent process like the honey/
sugar and sulfuric acid process.

The book Gemstones and Chemicals by George Fischer Ph.D. discusses
all these processes. But if my memory serves me correctly this book
is hard to find. If anyone needs info from the book I have a copy and
will gladly share any info that you need.

Sam B

I too am interested in dying stones. Please share what you find,
respectfully pat 

Check out:
Gemstone Coloration and Dyeing by George W. Fischer 1990

The entire book is available for online reading

This book is the culmination of some twenty-five years of personally
supported research on the use of inorganic chemicals to induce color
and inclusions in gemstone. Prior attempts to use dyes for gemstone
colorations had proved very disappointing. The fact that native
color in gemstone is derived from the presence of compounds of
certain metals as inorganic components (impurities) of the gemstone
suggested that the inorganic salts of these metals (dyes are organic
[1]) might serve well to induce color where color is lacking or
needs enhancing. A brief account of Easy Ways to Color Agate,in The
Agates of North America [2] was encouraging. Then, in 1963,a series
of articles by John Sinkakankus, C.G. appeared in the Lapidary
Journal under the title,Color Changes in Gemstones. One of these
articles dealt with the impregnation of gemstone with chemical
coloring agents and further confirmed the probability that inorganic
salts of certain metals would be very effective to induce color in
gemstone.

In the ensuing years, I have conducted many hundreds of experiments
on chemical coloration of gemstone, using dozens of chemical
compounds to induce color in more than thirty kinds of gemstone.
While the great majority of these experiments were more or less
failures, the results of those that were successful have been very
gratifying, and in some cases, fantastic. The primary purpose of this
book is to share with other rockhounds and lapidaries the coloring
processes I have developed during these years of experimentation. I
hope this will open to them, as it has to me, a tremendously
rewarding whole new facet and world in this fascinating hobby of
rockhounding and the lapidary arts. Then they, too, can experience
the thrill of creation in chemically coloring gemstone. In countless
instances, the true beauty potential of a piece of gemstone can not
be fulfilled until it is subjected to chemical coloration. The inward
joy and satisfaction that results from bringing to completion an
exquisite cabochon from a slab of gemstone so colored defies my
ability to describe it.

Dear Sam, I too am interested in dying stones. Please share what you
find, respectfully pat

I was fortunate enough to purchase one of the very last original
copies of Mr Fisher’s seminal book on dying stones from his widow
shortly after he passed away…many years ago. Used it extensively
for a number of years and truly loved the results. Don’t do it any
longer but still have some of the chemicals around the shop
somewhere. You will be surprised at the results.

Cheers from Don in SOFL

Dear Don:

I am going to search Amazon for Mr. Fishers book. I am interested in
dying because it is so prevailant in the marketing of stones. I just
posted two dragonskin pendants and a dragonskin drusy necklace. I
love the dye job on the necklace. Am getting a new camera, but even
with the old, using a light underneath gave me great pictures. Check
it out at Etsy. com and my shop is AlaskaStixsnStones . I want to
learn anything that I can about dying. keep in touch, blessings pat