Chalcedony is called the sister jade of agate. Because agate and chalcedony look very similar, how should we distinguish between agate and chalcedony? What's the difference between the two? Let's have a look
The difference between agate and chalcedony
1. Stripes: Agate is a medium and low-grade jade raw material, with cryptocrystalline structure (that is, no crystal particles can be seen), obvious banded stripes and glass luster, which is easy to distinguish. It should be noted that the difference between agate and chalcedony is that agate is cryptocrystalline, with obvious strip texture and glass luster, while chalcedony is microcrystalline, without strip texture, glass to grease luster.
2. The difference between chalcedony and agate lies in whether there are striped patterns. Strictly speaking, there is no characteristic of striped pattern. Can only be called 'chalcedony', can be called agate. However, in the current market, some chalcedony without patterns are also regarded as' agate ', which is inconsistent with the meaning of ancient agate. In chalcedony, many are jade raw materials. Due to their different colors, they are divided into red chalcedony (also known as Inca stone), green chalcedony, blood chalcedony (also known as blood stone) and Jasper (formerly also known as jasper).
3. Color: Agate can be divided into the following varieties according to morphological characteristics: Onyx (including silk wrapped agate and truncated agate), red Onyx, moss agate (also known as dendritic agate), landscape agate (also known as Chengzhai agate), fire agate and water gall agate. The famous Nanjing 'Yuhua stone' is a kind of agate with concentric texture. The evaluation and purchase factors of agate are color, transparency and lumpiness. The process requirements are bright and pure color and thick color layer; Smooth surface and high transparency; The patterns are uniform, clear and linear; Fine and tough texture; No crack or few cracks; Large lumpiness. Red and blue are the best.
4. Varieties of chalcedony: green chalcedony (also known as Australian jade, China is also known as yingka stone), dark green chalcedony, Jasper, blood chalcedony (also known as chicken blood stone), etc. The color of chalcedony is pure and beautiful. The larger the block, the better. Green chalcedony and green chalcedony are the most precious. Chalcedony is mostly processed into jewelry such as ring face, bracelet and necklace.
5. Agate and chalcedony can be distinguished according to different colors, stripes and other patterns. Chalcedony products are easily confused with Dongling stone, dense jade and Jasper, which can be distinguished according to the differences in color, texture and density. Chalcedony products are bright, aphanitic structure and fine texture. Dongling stone and other quartzites have coarse particles, fine-grained structure and relatively rough texture. Jade similar to green chalcedony include green jadeite, turquoise, Tianhe stone, etc. The green jadeite has an interlaced structure of phenocrysts, and phenocrysts or fibrous jadeite crystals can be seen. Turquoise has poor transparency, porcelain luster and low hardness, which is 5-6. Tianhe stone has obvious lattice stripes.