Sterling silver earrings, 3/4 inch x 3/4 inch, with bezel set Fordite cabochons. $98. Sold
I bet you have no idea what those stones are. Actually, they are not technically stones but a manmade material called Fordite which also goes by the names Motor Agate and Detroit Agate, Believe it or not these cabochons were made from layers of vintage automobile paint! Decades ago when multiples of production cars were hand sprayed in the factories, the oversprayed paint would accumulate on the tracks the cars rested on. Over time, these layers of paint built up and were repeatedly hardened when the cars went into the ovens to cure. When the paint became too thick it was scraped off resulting in a rock hard slab of enamel with crazy colorful patterns. Some very crafty workers got the brilliant idea to use this beautiful material for other things such a cabochons.
Fordite has been around since the 70's but since that process of painting is no longer used there is very little of the raw material left. A matched pair like these is especially rare so I was quite excited when I came across them. These particular cabochons came from the UK.
The photo really doesn't do these stones justice...in person the colors are vivid and the cabs are cut in an unusual, very dimensional way. They stand on their own so I just set them with a simple bezel on little sterling squares to show them off.
Very very cool....
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