September 28, 2019
Antique Scottish Agate Jewellery - Great design always comes back!
One of the most exciting aspects of collecting is finding a new type of item to collect. This past year I have started a collection of antique Scottish agate jewellery. It is still a small collection, but I am always on the look out for interesting items. Scottish agate on its own is amazing. There are all types of beautiful colours and patterns with the purest consistency I have ever seen in a stone. This type of agate is from the chalcedony family like carnelian. The most well-known types of Scottish agate are banded, bullseye and moss agate. Banded agate tends to be black, brown or red with white stripes while bullseye has circular patterns. Finally, moss agate is characterised by clear stone with a green organic inclusions that resembles moss.
"This coincided nicely with the Scottish Arts and Crafts movement that was grounded in the simple elegant design of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School"
This type of jewellery became quite popular during Victorian times as the Queen would spend a lot of time in Scotland making all things Scottish quite fashionable. This coincided nicely with the Scottish Arts and Crafts movement that was grounded in the simple elegant design of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School. Scottish agate was the perfect partner for this style as it had both clean lines and a simple organic feel that typified this movement.
Once you start looking at these wonderful pieces of jewellery it is very easy to get hooked. They can go for quite large sums – indeed it is sometimes rather difficult to pin down the value of this jewellery. There are deals to be had out there and I would encourage anyone interested in this area to find items that are less expensive and then once you are feeling more confident invest a bit more. Nothing in my collection, illustrated here, cost more than double digits to buy.
I think that Scottish agate antique jewellery will hold its value and increase in the years to come. The stones are amazing, and the quality of silver work is always excellent.
There is a wonderful Victorian Scottish agate necklace with a locket coming up in our auction that will going live this week.
