Description: Nowadays, most people think a magatama is an off-center glass seed bead. But originally, the term belonged to "curved jewels" (the literal translation) like the ones here: stones carved into a comma-like shape whose significance is lost to the ages. Different sources claim it's meant as mimicry of a drop of water, a sprouting seed, a tongue of flame, or even an embryo-- maybe all of the above, for all I know. Whatever its origin, the magatama has always had a special status in Japan; even now, one of the sacred Imperial treasures is said to be a magatama necklace handed down from the sun-goddess Amaterasu. A bit of explanation for the "koi agate" phrase: the world of cryptocrystalline quartz is awash in arbitrary terminology. In some usages, "chalcedony" covers all such stones; in others, only transparent/translucent stones qualify as "chalcedony" while the opaque ones are considered to be "jasper". And then within the transparent/translucent category, the term "chalcedony" can narrow down even further to allow only the smoothly colored patternless stones, while patterned ones are "agate"; traditionally, "onyx" referred to agates patterned with fine parallel white stripes. And then there's the uniformly opaque "black onyx", which completely screws everything up. Anyway. In the transparent/translucent sense, chalcedony with a definite orange/red hue is called "carnelian". Most people are accustomed to thinking of carnelian as nearly-opaque dark red, so the term "goldfish carnelian" has come into use for the "other" carnelians that're more orangey than the standard image. When I first got a small batch of these chalcedony (in the widest sense) magatama, I separated off the uniformly-colored goldfish carnelians and was left with a pile of magatama in the same color range, but with a wild variety of different patterns. I promptly nicknamed them "koi agate" and gave them their own category. But now that I have a larger batch, there are so dang many "koi agates" that I have to subdivide them into semi-arbitrary subcategories. These are "chagoi", named for a type of koi in a muted color range of soft light greens, yellows, and oranges; the original name literally means "tea-colored koi", which is a pretty good description of their palette. Within those boundaries, these magatama have a random range of patterns-- spots, stripes, color/intensity gradients etc.-- but their dominant color scheme is still in subtle hues that resemble various delicate brews of tea. The listing is individually-priced, i.e. one purchase = one magatama, though of course you can make multiple purchases if you need more than one. On the average, their dimensions are about 25x15x5mm, with 2mm-diameter boreholes. Unlike my larger stone magatama, I'd consider these light enough for conversion to earrings. Because of all the random variables, I can't absolutely guarantee any specific set of characteristics for any given purchase, including whether multiple magatama from the same order will be the same exact size. (With this group, I really doubt that any two of them have the same exact pattern.) However, if you specify your general preferences, I'll try to check for close matches. Please check my other listings for more pretties, and thanks for looking! ^_^
Price: 3.99 USD
Location: San Bruno, California
End Time: 2025-02-05T03:44:30.000Z
Shipping Cost: 3 USD
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Item Specifics
Restocking Fee: No
Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer
All returns accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 14 Days
Refund will be given as: Money Back
