Featured Is This Scottish Agate?

Hi,
this is a 9c gold ring - is this called Scottish Agate? Reminds me of brown swirl agate marbles.
Any information appreciated
thanks for looking

 

Handsome, solidly made ring. Banded agate of carnelian alternating with bands of less colorful chalcedony (also called banded carnelian) is a very common type of agate, occurring many places, including Scotland. It is not known as 'Scottish agate' but if you have seen it as 'Scottish agate brooch' or 'Scottish agate ring', it would be easy to come away with that impression.

 

Thank-you Bronwen! Yes, I found several that were called Scottish Agate, thanks for the correct information

 

The 9 ct gold used almost certainly means it was made in the UK, so perfectly likely the stone is domestic.

 

Agates aren't valuable stones, generally speaking, so to set it in gold it must have had meaning for someone. If that someone was Scottish, it would make sense.

 

I love it, cx.
In the 19th century it was fashionable here in Europe to set banded agate/carnelian and other less precious stones in gold, it is not unusual here. I see them regularly in antique jewellery auctions. 9ct could be British or German, the provenance of the stone could be either as well. It is not a typical Scottish agate, though.

 

The reason it gets called Scottish is for the style rather than the origin. These were wildly popularised by Queen Victoria - you get a great deal of hardstone jewellery from the late 19th. A fair bit is in gold, too.

 

It's a pretty ring; I like the back even better than the front for whatever reason.

 

Thanks for the replies folks

Sorry, I forgot to put in the Hallmark information. Yes, this is British, the maker is ZJ, looks like Birmingham and I can't make out the date letter.

 

This is like a mini-museum of agates:
http://www.scotlandsagates.co.uk/index.html
I have seen the blue-grey varieties called simply montrose agate.

Some other stones used in Scottish & Scottish inspired jewellery are 'cairngorm' (smoky quartz) & connemara marble

The Miracle company specializes in costume quality pieces in Celtic-& Scottish-inspired designs.

 

I'm always sticking my own stuff into other people's postings; no exception this time.

While not so distinctly banded, this tiny cabochon brooch is set with what is basically the same stone:

Like evelyb30, someone evidently preferred the back of this stone. I bought it because, on the other side, completely hidden when pinned on, was this:

Not terribly inventively, I had it made over into a little pendant. Found when I got it back that necessity had required it to be suspended upside down.

 

love the carving on the back Bronwen! Yours looks very white on the back - if polished would it show more colours?

 

These are sort of lighting & camera artifacts. When held up with a sunny window behind, the stone is quite pale from either side, just faintly orange-y in the center. Intaglios are just the dickens to photograph, usually requiring light coming in from an angle to deliberately create some glare for contrast.

The other factor in play is my limited skills as a photographer. I leave my camera on automatic all the time. It makes different 'decisions' depending on how light or dark the background is. I wanted to bring out the color of the cabochon side to show the similarity with your stone, so showed it against a light background, while the intaglio side is shown against black.
Here's the cabochon against black:

 

I rather like Miracle jewellery. They also had a Mizpah label. It amuses me that it's Scottish style,but made in Birmingham!

 

That always got me too. I have some Miracle and Miracle-style bits kicking around here somewhere. It's along the lines of all those tourist knicknacks sold in Indian trading posts that were made in Taiwan and are now done in China.

 

Just to clarify for those unfamiliar with the sentiment conveyed by the single word 'mizpah', not all jewellery with this word was made by the company & not all jewellery made by the company displays the word. And sometimes the word appears in a very different context:

 

If it gets to the point where one needs to boil their jockstrap I think you would have more than an itch.

 

Very nice looking ring there cxgirl! I have a cloisonne box that has something similar on top of it. Not as nice as yours, by any means but still a little bit nice.