Thread: Escher missing link.

I recently picked up a slightly unusual Escher.

A 5" x 2" main stone with a slurry stone. Nothing unusual there. The main stone is grey. Again, nothing unusual. At first glance the slurry stone was dull yellow/green. Now, that's unusual. Yellow/green main stone with grey slurry stone wouldn't have surprised me.

On closer inspection the slurry stone was a dull yellow green on one side and a more grey colour on the other. Running straight through its centre is a sedimentary band deliniating the yellow/green from the grey.

This shows that the grey and the yellow green are found in the same deposit. However, they are somewhat different in hardness and 'feel'.

This is much like the blue coticule and yellow coticule being found in the same deposit except that the difference between the grey Escher and the yellow/green is nowhere near as marked as the difference between blue and yellow coticule.

IMHO, the yellow/green is the better stone.

I'll take more images when I can get the light right. In the interim, there's a sample image and two videos illustrating the slurry stone received.



Video:

Video 1 - 8.06MB

Video 2 - 7.99MB

Probably best to right click and save locally before viewing.

Laager, I recently acquired a NOS Y/G stone from a quarry in Germany. This stone came from the same quarry where some NOS Grey stones were mined. I've never seen the Y/G and Grey together like a Natural Coticule, but you have the evidence that it occurs! No doubt this is why there are so many variations in color among Escher stones. IMHO, grading these stones is very dependent on the person doing the grading unless one has a sharp, clear cut difference in color.

Whenever you have a quarry with similiar rock species your going to have a sample with some of each. In reality the purer the sample the better it is and the more mixed the lower the grade. A sample with a vein of another would probably not be the best since it would have characteristics of both. Imagine buying a Norton 8K and it had veins of a 1K running through it. It might be interesting but how would you use it? Actually the kind of stone you have is probably the more common type of stone that came from the quarry.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

WImagine buying a Norton 8K and it had veins of a 1K running through it. It might be interesting but how would you use it?

Something makes me think though that an Escher green/yellow with veins of Escher green-grey running through it wouldn't present any problems .

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Whenever you have a quarry with similiar rock species your going to have a sample with some of each.

To my knowledge there hasn't been a post on this forum alleging that the grey and yellow/green are found in the same quarry. The point of the post is to demonstrate that they are found in the same deposit. I thought that was clear.

Well a deposit will contain the veins of your target stone and they can run all over the place depending on the rock strata in the area. A quarry is simply a manmade hole dug in one place. The same stuff can be found in many areas depending on how the vein travels. It may just be economically not feasable to dig deeper or the vein may play out. Its hit or miss as you dig. You can only do a core sample and try and see what comes up.

You're still completely missing the point of the post.

Howard's website says this:

We occasionally receive a natural combination stone from the quarry that is yellow coticule on one side and blue on the other. They are fairly rare and come from the spot where the yellow vein of coticule intrudes into the blue stone. To my knowledge they are the only known naturally occurring combination whetstone.

Laager's stone does seem a bit unusual.

I'd always thought the colors of eschers just sort of faded into one another. I have a small grey 5x1 that has no "blue"-ness to it, but a touch of green. Laager kindly supplied me with a green-yellow rubbing stone (which he practically gave away); side-by-side his slurry stone brings out the green in my stone. And Ivo has an escher that's very yellow indeed. I had sort of imagined that the unquarried rock shades from a light yellowish to yellow-green to green-grey to grey-blue to blueish. But the clear line in Laager's stone makes me rethink that a little, which is interesting.

On the other hand, the difference between different grades of Escher seems nowhere near as marked as between the yellow and blue Belgian strata. That's based on what people say, not my own experience. I have only the one escher.

Originally Posted by Laager

You're still completely missing the point of the post.

I guess I am missing it too. Seems the "fight" is over the words deposit and quarry.

I have seen rubbing stones with more than one color and or shade in them....greenish/bluish in the same stone, dark hard blue/grey and light soft grey in them as well. Maybe the fact that only the rubbing stones are made from this blended type stone says something of its quality.

Laager, can you explain what you feel we are missing.

Tony

Originally Posted by Tony Miller

Laager, can you explain what you feel we are missing.

You're not missing anything. thebigspendur is missing the point clearly expounded here:

The point of the post is to demonstrate that they are found in the same deposit.

It's not a post about mining techniques nor the economic viability of accessing an entire deposit; nor that a quarry is an isolated surface drawpoint for a deposit. It's about the demonstration that grey and yellow/green come from the same deposit, in the same fashion as blue and yellow coticule. Nothing more, nothing less.

As I also stated:

To my knowledge there hasn't been a post on this forum alleging that the grey and yellow/green are found in the same quarry.

This thread alleges it.