The Jewel

Who should be our April pup of the month?

Have you heard of the rare natural cross agate? Jan Daggett features a collection in gold jewelry, setting these phenomenal stones into pendants, earrings and rings.

The natural cross agate are amazing natural wonders that come from a remote region of Indonesia. Local villagers collect the small agate pebbles from river drainages and ancient gravel terraces. Over the course of a year thousands of agates are gathered, but only 1% reveal the natural cross, and only about 70% of those are successfully ground and polished into finished stones. The villagers work most of these stones without the benefit of electricity! Even with state of the art equipment, cutting the crosses would remain challenging. The natural cross pattern is sealed just under the skin of the agate which must be shaped with extreme caution to reveal the cross.

No more than 250 finished stones are carried out of the jungle each year by one entrepreneur, a former mining engineer from Oregon (Joel Ivey). Of those stones, Jan Daggett has the good fortune to hand pick from his collection for the finest of these rare gems!