Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've checked in. Lots of changes but nice to see so many old friends. I am at Quartzsite again this year, just moved my stuff over to the Pow Wow yesterday. Stop by and say 'hi'! I'm in booth 213 right next to highland park! 

So the forum spam guard is and has been disabled this whole time. I suspect some of you may have malware that is redirecting you to some fakey 'captcha' site? No mention of this on SMFforfree support forum, so I dont think there have been recent changes to forum software that would be causing this. If someone can forward me a screenshot that may help me to figure out what is going on (use the 'PRTSC' button and then paste and save in paint)

Not all petrified coral has good cell replacement. I have cut up slabs that you wouldnt guess were coral, unless you had seen the full coral head with the fossilized polyps...

Awesome work, Steve!  Not sure why this topic wasn't 'sticky' yet!

Great Bob, glad someone was able to take advantage of that good deal! Happy grinding!

The Moche also did some really incredible work with inlay.

A few of my favorite examples:

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The early peoples of northern Peru are really very fascinating, and the Moche culture in particular has an impressive artistic legacy. I showed close-ups of a few (probably Moche) pre-columbian quartz beads in this thread a while back.

Awww.... c'mon Amanda, fart noises are funny! 

Congratulations, but shame on you for your bashfulness! Margie, can I beg you to post a picture of the winning entry?

Wow, what an interesting place! I think I'd spend at *least* 8 hours there. How much do you think you'd have to bribe the local police to come confiscate those rhino horns? Its a little sickening... there are about 2 dozen rhinos there!

Hey Kurt! Glad to have you back. Too bad we seem to be blocked in China!

I agree it is one of your better pieces. There is one minor detail that I think would improve the overall appearance, but I don't want to seem overly critical since it really is a fantastic piece!

That is what I understand. Theoretically, you can also get copper toxicity from working copper silicates like chrysocolla without adequate water/ventilation/dust protection. However, I think the carbonates are more readily absorbed by the body than copper silicates.

This topic has been moved to Shop and Swap .

http://gemstone.smfforfree4.com/index.php?topic=13565.0

Was it to this thread? Moderation logs show another version of this thread, with the same subject, was deleted ~30 min before this was posted...? Thats the only thread that got deleted yesterday...

There is actually a sticky post explaining offsite hosting under 'forum announcements': http://gemstone.smfforfree4.com/index.php/topic,115.0.html