When this gorgeous new material showed up on the market a few years ago, I had a feeling it wasn’t a completely natural stone, but I loved it none the less. I bought a fair amount of it, and I have several items available made with it in my online shop. Back in the day, I scoured the internet and asked experts, trying to find out more about what dealers were claiming to be a natural stone called Mexican fire agate.
Now it’s known to be in some cases a heat treated form of carnelian, which is an agate, and in others glass. I believe mine to be agate, not glass based on how it breaks when I smash it with a hammer (how’s that for careful scientific analysis? Whatever works…..). What has emerged as the proper name for this material is “crab fire agate.”
This name serves to somewhat distinguish the stone from “fire agate,” which is a rare and expensive gemstone that displays brilliant, opal-like flashes of color which are known as fire in the trade. Crab fire agate is an agate, with an orange color and fire-like variagations, so the name does make sense. However, it does not have what jewelers call “fire” and is entirely different from fire agate dispite the similar name.
Crab fire agate is a descriptive name which happens to be very similar to the “real” name of fire agate, a very different and far more valuable gem with an optical characteristic known as fire. I happen to love crab fire agate, but it’s important to me to make sure my buyers know what they are getting, and the names are close enough as to be potentially very misleading.
If you look at modern-day reproduction Dzi beads (also made from agate) you will see very similar “crazing” or pattern lines. I can only assume that a very similar treatment is used for both crab fire agate and Dzi beads.
