We recently obtained a few premium and less commonly encountered petrified logs from the Beck family. One of my favorites so far produced this unusual and visually striking specimen! I knew with the first cut that this was going to be something I hadn't worked with before and it turned out every bit as amazing as I'd hoped when I saw the first cut in the log! This truly incredible specimen comes from one of the best preserved fossil hardwood forests on the planet. It was discovered in the Columbia Basalts near Vantage, WA. It's not only beautiful and glassy, it's also very finely preserved. Countless growth rings are visible to the naked eye as well as very pronounced rays that are easily visible in the glassy polished surface to the naked eye. When viewed under magnification you can see every tiny detail and pore of an exquisitely preserved hardwood tree. The specimen aligns fairly closely with modern butternut when compared to microphotos in my reference books. This piece came to us from the Beck family collection and is one of our favorites! I finished cutting a log that Dan Beck cut years ago and this choice slab from the center of the log produced a true gem fossil art piece. This is a very glassy round from a highly prized location that has produced many world class petrified wood specimens. It has a perfect finish that reveals all this fine detail - only available from eBay's Original Rockshop - Sticks-in-Stones Lapidary! Look at the intricate cell structure in this well preserved ring porous hardwood in the micro-photo. This is a true collector piece prepared as only our shop can!!
If you're an established petrfied wood collector than you have almost certainly purchased pieces from Bob and Dan Beck, either directly or through the rockshops they supplied. They have been fixtures at Quartzite for decades and Dan was also regularly set up at the Tucson and Denver shows. Bob Beck began his Oregon rockhounding career about the time I was born, back when Kennedy was still President! Like most rockhounds, he began casually and his first piece of equipment was a rock tumbler that he'd bought for his daughter. He soon found he loved it more than she did. He followed the passion and by the time his son Dan was in high school, Bob already had a small commercial operation producing lapidary art and jewelry pieces. His son was quickly enlisted in the nascent family business where the bug also took hold. When Bob decided to pursue lapidary full time, Dan said he'd help for a year to get it going. That year stretched to 45 and the family became one of the great anchors of Pacific Northwest petrified wood lapidary artists. It's hard to say for certain, but my guess is that these guys made more petrified wood bookends over the years than all of the other Pacific Northwest lapidary studios combined! Dan kept the business going on his own in more recent years as his dad's health and age limited his participation, but he recently retired from the business himself. Like most of the old breed rockhounds, they were some of the nicest and sincerest people you could hope to meet or trade with. I've purchased the bulk of his inventory including tons of rough raw material and a few boxes of premium finished pieces as well as several others in various stages of production. This specimen was cut and polished in our shop though the log came from Dan. It's a truly perfect mirror finish that just glistens to help make this fantastic specimen all it should be!
This is a really beautiful specimen of the petrified wood found in our home state of Washington. The town of Vantage has several private ranches that have produced some truly stunning petrified hardwoods from time to time. This one was found in that area and had been housed in a private collection for decades. The collection that produced this specimen only recently became accessible to us and we've obtained some marvelous pieces the likes of which you're unlikely to find anywhere else. Here's a wonderful chance to add a fantastic quality show piece from a rarely seen location to your own collection! This wood is some of the best preserved, exceptionally agatized wood around. It has just a touch of opal which makes them polish up to look wet to the touch - they are simply gorgeous and the 3-D wood grain has to be seen in person to be fully appreciated!
This is a reasonably complete, perfect and gorgeous round taken from an intricately preserved hardwood. Just look at the detailed wood grain in the zoom view above! It's preserved with absolutely gorgeous gem quality agate with a high opal content in warm, natural wood tones forever capturing this ancient fossil. The exterior is still ash white - colored by the ancient volcanic blast that buried this prehistoric forest. The inside, however, is a richly colored array of gem quality agate that preserved the wood grain beautifully in every detail! The cell structure from the growth rings in this attractive fossil specimen are amazingly well preserved all the way through the face.
It's cut from the center of a fairly complete petrified log that allows you to see the rays, rings and other cell features very easily with a 10x loupe (the rings and rays are visible to the naked eye). This specimen has been carefully polished to show off all the gemmy detail inside. Reasonably fracture free too. It's another one of those beautiful fossil treasures that some happy Sticks-in-Stones customer is going to flip over!
This beautiful, easy to display round measures about 7" across the widest part of the mirror polished face and is cut about 0.59" thick. Weight is 1.68 lbs.
A nice, unique naturally wonderful stone collectible exclusively from Sticks-in-Stones Lapidary.