A very eye-catching, concentrically banded, old-time agate from the classic and very historic Idar-Oberstein area of Germany. It is roughly circular, doubly convex with polished surfaces on both sides. It is a strikingly banded piece with different concentric patterns on both sides. What I would consider the display side, has at least a few dozen, millimeter to sub-millimeter, continuous, somewhat wavy, grayscale bands around a common center with the outermost band being two-thirds off-white and one-third a rusty color, possibly from iron-staining. The central area has a miniature, what looks like a small, micro-banded agate along with radial-divergent, translucent Quartz crystals, very similar to those at the periphery of the piece. The back side is also quite attractive and considerably different with a trio of connected circles in the center surrounded by a thick (3 to 4 mm) white area and several variably light gray, concentric bands and then a 2.5 to 5 mm variably gray area followed by several millimeter thick bands and then a thick zone of radial divergent Quartz crystals. The iron staining shows through this side as well. A very unique and attractive piece from this very important and historic locality. The specimen is almost certainly from the 1800s; and many of the classics in the Seel collection were obtained when Paul Seel bought from the huge European collections being brought over to the USA for sale in the early 1900s by a number of East Coast based dealerships.
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