Groundhog Day (Yellowcat Style)

I'm having second thoughts about whether my "Yellowcat Bark" is really "Yellowcat Wood"

One of the most valuable rocks found in Utah is called “Yellowcat Wood”. I have exactly one piece of “classic” Yellowcat Wood – the kind that sells for prices in four figures at auction – in spite of the fact that I know my dad rockhounded the Yellowcat area back when there was still some to be found. (There’s none there now.) I’ve written – Oh … I don’t know … maybe half a dozen essays – about Yellowcat Wood versus Yellowcat Bark. Here’s a recent one. This is yet again another essay in the same series. That’s why I’m calling it Groundhog Day.

I also have these other rocks. I call them “Yellowcat Bark” specifically to tell people that I am not claiming that they are valuable “Yellowcat Wood” – because I don’t know that for certain. But I’m having second thoughts about it. More on that later.

A rock has to have three properties to reach stratospheric prices.

1. There has to be a strictly limited supply.

2. It has to be very identifiable.

3. It has to “catch fire” with "investment rockhounds".

Yellowcat Wood has all three properties. Yellowcat Bark doesn’t.

Since I’ve become obsessive about it, I can identify both of them from the other side of a football field. So, it’s strong on property number 2. I’ve never seen Yellowcat Bark for sale anywhere else so it might be strong on property number 1 as well. But if I claimed that it was Yellowcat Wood, I would run into a firestorm of objections from “investment rockhounds” and I’d deserve it. It doesn’t have the classic banding and crystal centers of Yellowcat Wood.

It is a beautiful rock! It has the colors of Yellowcat Wood and the agate is the same stuff that takes a great polish. I sent a nice piece to my friend Ken who will testify that it’s a great “rockhound” rock.

I had to transport my dad’s rocks from a few hundred miles away at the family home to where I live now “dump truck style”. So they’re just a mixed up pile now. One of my retirement hobbies is digging through the pile to see what’s there. It’s like a treasure hunt. The Yellowcat Bark that I have now was discovered piece at a time while I was doing that.

I found a piece just recently that is like the “missing link” between Yellowcat Wood and Yellowcat Bark. It almost has the crystal center and banding that is missing in what I have found previously. It may not be Yellowcat Wood, but you can see it from there.

Let me know what you think.