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Link to Current eBay Listing . Yeh Chung-san ( Ye Zhong-san ) is likely the most prolific of all artists. Bottles can be found in abundance. His work even as a follower of Chou Lo-yuan has its own style and in most cases is easily distinguishable from Chou Lo-yuan. His sons were taught by Yeh himself and became experts themselves, but continued to sign their fathers name as well as those of other artists. It was common practice in the family that the sons sign their fathers name while he... Read Full Story

. Just using the power of blogging to post this eBay listing. Will remove at the close of auction. Here is the link to the eBay listing for detailed photos. Farewell letter ( with Congressional seal ) from Pawnee Agency to their friend, neighbor, officer, and respected Indian Territories Clerk. Included with this letter is the Civil war tax stamped photograph sent by Capt Reese Pickering ( while previously enlisted in the Civil War, 15th Ohio Infantry 1861-1865 ), to his wife Sarah in... Read Full Story

Information about all aspects of collecting Chinese snuff bottles. Trials, tribulations, evaluating, identifying, researching all aspects of Chinese snuff bottle collecting. This Squidoo lens is also intended to introduce a brand new Chinese snuff bottle discussion forum at http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/ . If you are a novice, or experienced collector ? I am very interested in sharing and learning more about all the different types of Chinese snuff bottles . Read Full Story

Every now and then I come across something a bit more unusual and interesting. This Ferro Actinolite is one of those ! This Ferro Actinolite is a beautiful translucent, opaqe green, with nickel webbing. At least I believe the webbing is nickel. I am still unsure about the origin. One reference suggests Astor, Shigar Valley Pakistan. A friend believes it is from my very own Washington State. Have not found any info to confirm that. Read Full Story

I had only cabbed some Wonderstone Rhyolite one time back when first learning to cab. Took me a while to learn that the polishing difficulties I was having were not me, but the lack of silica content in the Wonderstone. As a result did not think would purchase again until I met Linna of Stone Age Industries via their Facebook page . Linna had posted some pics of some beautiful looking Wonderstone. We started talking a bit on Facebook. I had commented about one and only polishing... Read Full Story

A member from my Lapidary / Gemstone Community forum sent me this most unusual material. This is Avila Brecciated Rhyolite. Also called “DeeDeeite” by the rock club nearest the deposit about three miles from California’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. Most of this type has larger rhyolite pieces floating in the agate…but these pieces have the smaller pieces making it better for smaller lapidary work. This comes from a very SMALL area and your would think because it is on the beach... Read Full Story

Heat Treating Minerals There are a great many minerals that can be heat treated as shown in the forum post. Heat treating these different minerals can result in some outstanding color enhancements ! Here is a picture of some showing a Brazilian Agate before, intermediate, and a fully heat treated cabs. Slow increments of raising the heat and lowering the heat makes a difference between highly fractured results and fracture-free results. There is a great reference on Gaonksin... Read Full Story

This is my first attempt at making an intarsia ! A bit of a disaster.. It should have been more obvious to me while grinding down the flat edges of the Obsidian that it was not nearly good enough. As can be seen at the joints. I knew the top edges were a bit chipped, but thought that by the time I took it down a bit that those would disappear. Maybe they would have if I had ground her down more.. It’s just that the dome is pretty low as it is, so will have to think about that next time... Read Full Story

Is annealing really just a simple matter of heating the metal and letting it cool? I think this is the first question that comes to mind for someone brand new to working silver and other metals for jewelry design. I know it was for myself. One important benefit to annealing is that the process makes the silver easier to handle during the bending and shaping process. Using a higher gas to oxygen ratio and not using the flux will result in very little oxidization with the higher acetylene... Read Full Story

Tutorial by Art Jewelry Magazine Read Full Story