Featured Age of banded agate brooch and pin length

I’m always stumped by the price of Victorian banded agates necklaces and would love to find such a nice bulls eyes as yours, @KSW

 

No, this is cut in such pattern « bull’s eye » from one banded agate.
Typical Victorian piece!!!

 

Wow!
Mine have no clasp,just loose , arrived in a job lot so age indeterminate! Some have nice banding, others are not so clearly defined.

 

Could be!. I’ll have a closer look.

 

Thankyou. I’ve got another one somewhere which is a real oldie- a snake around a banded agate. I’ll dig it out tomorrow.

 

Late 19thc?

 

Rather 1850/1870

 

Thankyou

 

Wow, OK, daughter and I were both wrong. She guessed 1920 and I went for 1890.

 

Here’s two of mine, the faintly banded reddish agate one isn’t a bullseye but I’ve shown it because has the hole in the back as yours. It is one stone.Why would it have this hole please @Hollyblue, is it to hold it in place while putting it in the setting?

 

What is inside of the hole,can you scrape out the material with a needle? It doesn't look like the "flat" inside the hole was drilled.

 

Just a bit of dust. I’ll see if I can get a clearer pic.

 

I have never viewed anything like it in modern jewelry. Just a wild guess, 2 stones the same size and drilled in the same location could be pegged together and mounted into a pendant that swivels/flips to present one side or the other.

 

Sorry, it was just a random photo that looked like yours. I searched images for "bulls eye agate brooch"

 

Perhaps the drilled hole helps hold it onto the dop stick for cabbing purposes

 

My holed version and KSWs has in common the broader band of metal on the back, I’ve had a look online but can’t find any other holed so far but the ones I’ve seen have either been completely encased in metal on the back or thin band as my bullseye with no hole. The dopstick @stracci suggests seems feasible, maybe to attach the broader metal band?

 

That's fascinating that both of ours have the odd hole in the back. It's realistic to suppose that lovely pieces of stone were reused if the original piece of jewellery was damaged or outdated. Does anyone know when these banded agate stones became a thing? Was it the victorians or earlier?

 

What do you mean by flat please?

 

It is odd, the holes look so similar, maybe the brooches which have the encased backs have the holes too and we just can’t see them?
Think the Scottish stone jewellery got especially popular when Queen Victoria went to live at Balmoral. Useful for securing tartan wraps, kilt pins.