This may be one of the single most fascinating pieces in our collection right now! The weathered exterior texture on the husk of this fossil is simply amazing and begs to be handled. The back of this stone is a natural and fascinating face that has been slowly weathered by the natural elements from an exposed (broken open) cone fossil. The front display face was cut in our shop to reveal the nearly magical gem pattern of the flower petal like arrangement of the seed pods preserved inside. We've applied our besto work to the cut face which is polished to a mirror perfect finish to show off all the stunning detail and color preserved in this magnificent fossil cone! This exceptional cone is intricately preserved and shows the seed pods very clearly. A fascinating and beautiful piece of natural history!
One of my best finds in Tucson a couple of decades ago was a source of good quality, highly agatized, petrified pinecones! I'd seen a few of these around in years past, but the prices were always out of reach for this rockhound. That year I found a fellow who had a selection of both whole and incomplete cones for a reasonable price. I wasn't all that interested at first, until I looked closely and saw how many of them were wind polished - a good sign that the stone is very hard and has a high agate content! I wetted a few and saw a gorgeous blue agate pattern in the face of some of the weathered ones. That was enough for me to jump in buy them and boy am I glad I did!!
The first cone I cut revealed a gorgeous, starburst pattern of dark coffee and black colored plant structure with the spaces between the seed pods and the seed pods themselves filled with a gorgeous blue agate that reminds me of the Blue Forest petrified wood we've enjoyed for years. You can see all the detail of this prehistoric cone in a shape and pattern that is unmatched by anything I'd ever seen before. These lovely cones come from Argentina. The cones are "Araucaria elongata" or more commonly, giant monkey puzzle tree cones from Cerro Cuadrado, Patagonia, Argentina. They are from the Jurassic age. (Thanks paleodon!) When cut in cross section they are beautiful, well preserved and exceptional lapidary/fossil specimens. If you haven't purchased from us before you'll be in for another treat - while many commercial lapidaries will tell you how great their polishing skills are, we invite you to look at the hundreds of comments in our feedback file where many of the collectors here on eBay explain that it's the unique high quality specimens and spectacular, liquid perfect polish that has them coming back to Sticks-in-Stones Lapidary to grow their collections! This is a complete cone cross section cut from the end of an average sized cone and it is a virtually flawless example of what can come from this region. The weathered diamond pattern on the exterior and back of the cone reminds me of the way cycads grow. This cone measures about 2 5/8" x 1 7/8" across the polished face and is a maximum of about 0.67" thick. It weighs 0.12 lbs.A nice, unique naturally wonderful stone collectible exclusively from Sticks-in-Stones Lapidary.