Stuff you might want to know after scratching the surface.
Q: I see “ROY” all over the place. What is ROY?
A: The ROY designation on several of the stones, such as Natural ROY or Banded ROY, stands for Red/Orange/Yellow. We borrowed this from the mnemonic for remembering the rainbow’s arc of color: ROY G BIV. When we order natural carnelian (itself a stone among the chalcedony family) or agates, our color choice at this end of the spectrum is red, so that’s what we order. But we always ask for as much variety as possible, rather than for as much consistency as possible. Generally this allows us to offer a mix of reds, oranges, and yellows. Instead of calling these agates, say, Yellow Banded, we are now calling them Banded ROY – Leans Yellow, which better describes the stone because any nominally yellow stone will typically have red or orange patches, striations, veins, smears, or even spots.
Q: Can I choose the exact stone for my stripping guide?
A: Nope. We do not have a photo of every stone we carry. Take Moss Agate as an example, we do have several pics scattered around the site of moss agates cut to various formats – standard rings, wide rings, fluted rings. We do not have separate pics of “leans light” or “leans dark,” but in most of the group photos, you can see the both the family resemblance and the trends, as well as the individual differences. Some stones, like Blue Agate or Teal Green Agate have very little variety (though there is some), but others like Banded ROY and Moss Agate have more variety than constancy. We could take more and more photos and come up with more and more sub-group designations, but that would eat up too much time and effort, and it would remove some of the excitement of ordering a guide and not knowing exactly what you’ll get. Revel in chance. Unique stones are a healthy part of your next unrepeatable, truly unique rod.
That was a short list. We promise, we’ll add more.