That was the signature catch phrase of comic Rodney Dangerfield. Did you know that Jim Carrey -- you (relatively) young people out there probably recognize that name -- gave Dangerfield credit for getting his career started? This should be the catch phrase of Brazil Agate too. It's uniformly beautiful, crack free ... every piece seems to have wonderful banding. But it never commands great prices. Why? Because there is so gol darn much of it! One of my friends told me that he was familiar with a rock shop that had a standing order for fifty-gallon drums full of it to be delivered on a regular schedule. I've seen pictures of piles, hundreds of feet high in Brazil.
To try to appeal to a broader market, Brazil agate is often dyed in brilliant colors. So if you're considering a piece that is brilliant green, blue, purple or something like that ... it's been dyed that way. That's not the natural color.
I was researching rocks on the web when I found a document which appeared to have been issued by the Brazilian government. It seemed to say that raw Brazil agate could not be exported now. It had to be processed in Brazil in some way. I don't know if that's true or not. Maybe someone can enlighten me about that.
Needless to say, my dad DID NOT collect this piece. He probably traded for it at the Quartzite rock show in Arizona. I sold a whole one to Chris and when he cut it, this is what he found!
