Natural semi-precious gemstone inserts are top quality, highly polished materials. These exotic materials are a product of Mother Nature and vary widely in color and design. Five available stones are rolled into finely machined buttons and can be matched with three plating options. All three plating options have a baked on coating for lasting durability. All are priced and packaged in sets of three.
Plating Options:
Nickel plating works well with lacquered instruments and looks especially nice with lacquered "Sterling Plus" instruments.
Silver-plating matches well with silver-plated instruments. (Does not work well with lacquered horns.)
24K Gold plating matches very well with our gold-plated instruments and those with gold trim. Also works well on silver-plated horns. (Does not work well with lacquered horns.)
Stone Choices:
Paua Abalone: Paua Abalone is a shell that comes from the shallow coastal waters surrounding New Zealand. It is simply the most colorful Nacreous Shell in the world. Typically incorporating blues and deep greens, even the pink material in the shell turns bluish when viewed from varying angles.
Brazilian Agate:
Agate incorporates the widest range of colors, varying from clear to brown to fire red to multi-colored stones, with multi-layered bands of reds, browns and yellows being the most common. The natural colorations are caused primarily by iron and manganese migrating through the stone as waterborne solutions. Agate is a quartz mineral, originally formed in the bubbles within a volcanic lava bed and can range from 25 to 60 million years old.
Turquoise:
Turquoise is often regarded as the "gemstone of preference" by many cultures. Stabilized by a unique process to ensure lasting color, beauty, and durability, the material we use comes from mines on the Arizona-Mexico border and is considered one of the finest available.
Black and White Sardonyx:
This is a gemstone first made popular by the Romans. The ancients developed a method of coloring clean grey agate to produce a jet-black color. The resulting black and white color is especially rare due to its white banding and glass-like appearance. These finger buttons have a highly polished black "base color" with varying stripes ranging from pure white to brown to gold. The irregular patterns often incorporate more than one color in addition to black.
