Agate: Dyed? Natural?

NorthernTigress

I bought these two agate pillars assuming that they were probably dyed. But looking at them now, I'm wondering if they might be natural after all. The taller one is mostly grey, but there's some purple in there too. The smaller one is a mix of oranges and browns. Both have areas that are clear and/or white, which I understand can't happen with dyed stones.

What do you think?
 

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linnie

Well... I've definitely seen lots of tumbled, natural agate the more orange colour... and, if the grey one was dyed, it seems odd that so little was tinted purple... Having said that, whilst I've seen lots of colours in agate, purple hasn't been one of them... but mauve, definitely!!! Hmm... I just note that dyed stones that I've seen, like agate slices, generally display lots of the dyed colour... almost an overwash, and as you say, your pillars have ots of clear and white, so.... It's only a wee bit of purple, isn't it? Just a natural and beautiful idiosyncrasy, perhaps???
 

The crowned one

I would go with dyed personally.
 

linnie

Hmm... Still unsure re the purple one, as agate is often dyed purple, and I've never seen naturally-occurring purple colouration in that stone, but the orange/brown/white one... I've seen lots of that colourway naturally, in thunder-eggs etc... so... :)
 

peaceandkarma

I think dyed Agate looks beautiful and is a very good looking crystal.
 

Egypt

Testing your crystals for a fake.

You can take a needle and heat it up, poke your crystal, smell it and see if it smells like plastic, then it is fake. You can also take a knife and scrape it to see if it is real. If you scrape it and it leaves a marke , it is fake.
 

The crowned one

John Sinkankas says for blue: agate is soaked in a solution of potassium ferricyanide and then in a solution of ferrous sulphate to form the blue ferrous ferricyanide (Turnbull's blue) in the pores of the agate. Another method is to use potassium ferrocyanide with ferric sulphate to form ferric ferrocyanide (Prussian blue).

To find out for sure, there will most likely be some damage to the stones, but some less intrusive ways are: sun bleaching for the summer may change the colour if they are dyed, as will a week in bleach.
 

LeaRoseQuartz

The orange striped pillar or obelisk is carnelian and is very beautiful. Striped carnelian is an agate. It is brown colored to begin with and then is set out in the sun to turn it orange, which is o.k. with me. At least, the sun and heat treating, such as citrine, sometimes, is more natural than dying a stone. Your gray agate pillar looks natural, but yeah, the purple bits seem like it was dyed lightly, maybe. It still looks like a nice piece, though. What sizes are the two of them? What I really hate, is those bright colored, dyed agate slices, you see everywhere. Why be cruel to nature like that? They are pretty, but so fake. Why not just hang up bright colored pieces of plastic?
 

NorthernTigress

LeaRoseQuartz said:
The orange striped pillar or obelisk is carnelian and is very beautiful. Striped carnelian is an agate. It is brown colored to begin with and then is set out in the sun to turn it orange, which is o.k. with me. At least, the sun and heat treating, such as citrine, sometimes, is more natural than dying a stone. Your gray agate pillar looks natural, but yeah, the purple bits seem like it was dyed lightly, maybe. It still looks like a nice piece, though. What sizes are the two of them? What I really hate, is those bright colored, dyed agate slices, you see everywhere. Why be cruel to nature like that? They are pretty, but so fake. Why not just hang up bright colored pieces of plastic?

The grey/purple is a bit taller, but both are a little less than the length of my hand. They are a nice size for display.

Yes, I really hate the "neon agates" too. They are just so ridiculously bright and unnatural.
 

peaceandkarma

The crowned one said:
John Sinkankas says for blue: agate is soaked in a solution of potassium ferricyanide and then in a solution of ferrous sulphate to form the blue ferrous ferricyanide (Turnbull's blue) in the pores of the agate. Another method is to use potassium ferrocyanide with ferric sulphate to form ferric ferrocyanide (Prussian blue).

To find out for sure, there will most likely be some damage to the stones, but some less intrusive ways are: sun bleaching for the summer may change the colour if they are dyed, as will a week in bleach.


I've often wondered how they dye crystals. It sounds interesting.