Richardson / Priday Thundereggs

Richardsons - perhaps the archetypal thunderegg. Say the word thunderegg and maybe it is the richardson/priday stones that come to mind. Myself, I had a bit of a 'problem' with them at first, as I often do with the really famous thundereggs. Perhaps they were a bit too familiar. Everywhere I looked there would be richardsons or pridays and they all started to look similar after a time. However, then I actually began to gather a few of them - ones that caught my eye. Exceptionally finely formed stones, or just downright unusual ones, and they began to seduce me. My current verdict on them is that they are amazing and incredibly varied - but that it is still distinctly worth being selective. And also that sometimes is is the ones that are not 'top grade' that catch you.

They are one of the most varied of the thundereggs, with an immense range of agate and opal and mixtures of the two. This is partly because there are actually many beds in the general richardson area, often with their own characteristics - eg the moss bed, the opal bed, the red bed, the blue bed etc. They are also characterized by a distinctly monochrome matrix and something in their structure causes the edge of the matrix to crack and chip away. The agate is highly prone to leveling lines and various types of moss.