How to determine if my agate is genuine?

Question: My agate has rings of purple like a tree bark. There are translucent bands in between.

Answer: Agate is such a common stone that no one bothers to produce a synthetic version. You mention that the colour is purple - this is not a natural colour for agate and indicates that the basic stone is natural agate which has been stained by a chemical process. The reason that it is possible to stain agate is that although it looks solid it is in fact a mass of micro crystals which have minute gaps between them which are just big enough for the liquid stain to penetrate. Almost all the brightly coloured agates you see today are treated this way.

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