Blue Lace Agate

Blue Lace Agate Stones from Namibia

Three fine grade blue lace agate crystals, each of these polished stones exhibits magnificent banding and fascinating crystallization.  With each stone being translucent it becomes even more interesting when held up towards the light.

Despite its name blue lace agate is not really a true agate because although a variety of the mineral chalcedony that exhibits wavy bands, they did not come about because of layers forming around a central cavity which is considered to be a prerequisite of the mineral agate.  A more accurate name would be blue lace chalcedony but for the purpose of simplicity, the stone has always been known as agate.

Very small amounts of this mineral can be found in several countries around the world but the vast majority comes from Namibia in south west Africa. The blue lace agate deposit lies close to the Orange River and was discovered in the 1960's by George Swanson who subsequently mined it extensively until his death in 2010. Although the mining operation has now been scaled back significantly, small quantities continue to be mined.

Blue lace agate is particularly hard which makes it popular as a lapidary material and most of the finer grade material ends up being used for gemstones.  When used in holistic therapies such as crystal healing blue lace agate is said to be serene and calming with the ability to activate and heal the throat chakra.  For this reason it's said to be the stone to carry when trying to recover from a cold.

Once polished this variety of agate exhibits a vitreous lustre so the surface of the stone interacts with light in a similar way to glass.

These polished blue lace agate crystals are being offered for sale individually so make your selection from the dropdown list before proceeding to checkout.  The first stone on the left which has the curious inclusion has been sold but the one in the middle which is number 2 in the drop down list and the one on the far right which is number 3, are both still available.