Description: Our Apache Tears are beautiful black to dark gray round or roundish opaque obsidian nodules that range in size from 3/4 of an inch to 1 1/2 inches. A three pound lot will contain between 90 and 150 of these stones. Apache tears can be polished to a brilliant shine in a tumbler or by hand. When polished, they can range from a shiny opaque black to a gorgeous translucent gray or even a smoky grayish green. Some can even exhibit beautiful banding or dendritic formations. Obsidian is a natural volcanic glass that has a hardness of 5 to 5.5 on the Mohs scale. It can be tumble polished quite easily, and with skill, care, and a gentler touch it can also be cut, drilled, carved or even faceted. Apache Tears is a well-known nickname for small obsidian nodules, which are actually a volcanic silica in the form of a molten glass-like lava which solidifies rapidly into small pockets in a white chalky volcanic material called perlite or a harder light gray material known as caliche. The black color in the stone comes from carbon molecules in the molten lava. Often Apache Tears have a white coating of this material on their surface which easily polishes off. Apache tears are found in Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada, and are collected from the ground where they have eroded out of the caliche or perlite host rock, or can be dug out of the pockets where they formed. The photo of the white cliffs is a location in Arizona where Apache Tears are mined. Obsidian has been used for ornamental and decorative objects and jewelry making as early as 3,200 B.C. in Mesopotamia. Jewelry set with obsidian made about 1,352 B.C. has been found in some of the ancient tombs in the Egyptian pyramids.
Price: 35 USD
Location: Norway, Michigan
End Time: 2024-08-09T04:57:56.000Z
Shipping Cost: 18.5 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Shape: Natural
