Featured Brown Gemstone ID help please

Any suggestions welcome as Mary Contrary says they don’t exist in her universe
I thought Tigers Eye but it doesn’t look right.
Unassuming brown gemstone beads but they have some flecks on the outside of some and some clear colourless areas.
Over a phone light some are completely opaque and others are translucent showing red, swirls and inclusions. The red hint is there without the light but it is too transient to catch it on a photo.
Just plain agate?
Strung on red thread with a cheap manky clasp and glue so not considered to be anything special by the person who strung them although they are knotted.
Each bead is c 1.5cm and not reactive to UV.
Thanks for looking.

 

A Goldilocks question: when you weigh them in your hand, do they feel: surprisingly heavy; surprisingly light; about what you would expect from appearance?

 

Heavy. The lady behind the till in the charity shop remarked on how heavy they were.

 

If they are agate Mary would call them quartz, does she have a quartz setting?

 

They do look agate.

 

What the..... ?

 

They look naturally tumbled, like you see in seaglass

 

Mary first said they didn’t exist, then decided they were Iolite (standard when she is clueless), then insisted they were glass which I’m very sure they aren’t. She’s obviously been on the gin and is now in a darkened room considering her options. She has excelled herself in uselessness today
She does have a quartz option but didn’t offer that.

Edit
I didn’t realise iolite comes in brown. Could Mary be right?

 

I suspect hematite. That would go with the heaviness & the red. I have never seen any that looks like this, possibly because this is not the desired look for use in jewellery or as a mineral specimen, but Wiki tells me it "naturally occurs in black to steel or silver-gray, brown to reddish-brown, or red colors".

Some people believe there is benefit to wearing it. Our home craftsman may have been one such.

 

Ooh I didn’t think of that. Hematite is magnetic isn’t it, I’ll test it in the morning. I’ve only seen it in the shiny black/grey colour.

 

As far as I know,light won't shine through natural hematite. There is something called hematite sunstone which is a combination of feldspar and hematite.

 

I think you are on to something with this suggestion. Googling gives me a few examples that are similar, not exactly the same but on the right lines. Thanks Holly.

 

To humour Mary, there is also such a thing as hematite in iolite sunstone.

 

I'm now studying Mary Contrary & 'manky'.I do like discovering new slanguage.

 

I can't even imagine how newcomers would decipher this reply....snort. They'd be thinking you have a certified gemologist, on call, perpetually locked in your dungeon getting drunk.

 

She doesn't?

 

You all are making me laugh!
I've heard about @KSW having fisticuffs with Mary Contrary in the past. How ornery she must be!
Could the beads be dark and included smoky quartz?
Hmmm, maybe not, considering the reddish tones. Jasper?

 

Ok, what about obsidian, sometimes called Apache tears.

 

As far as I know, Apache tears don't have that yellow and red. Mine don't.