Petrified Wood! (I think anyway)

[ScribbleMuse]

Here are a lot of pics of some of these after the first scrub cleaning. They are still wet to show the colors and stuff, so I realize that no solid evaluation can probably be given yet, but am I probably correct in assuming this IS all petrified wood? There seem to be different materials in the overall batch; some have what seem to be very obvious wood grain patterns, and those seem to be in whatever forms the lighter colored opaque specimens. I don't know for sure that it's NOT sandstone but it doesn't seem to be like the sandstone in this area that I DO know--which is usually very brittle and easy to break apart.

Newer photos:



My father-in-law gave me this load of rocks and I am thinking it looks almost identical to real, living tree pieces (down to the bark separations and growth rings in some pieces!). Of course, due to the great universal laws that govern these types of things, the photos do not show the details the way I see them in person... lol Obviously I am still very ignorant in all this, but even if not pet wood, it's going to be at least pretty agate-ishy garden rocks.

FYI, these are prelim pics, and I admit that I did the opposite of everything you're supposed to do if asking help in ID--the specimens are wet b/c I snapped the pics after doing a quick jet spray down; the sun was setting in a vibrant and obviously orange lighting result; and there are no good macros of any details. So don't worry, I'm not asking for help on these yet, just sharing the prelim pre-superduper wash I'll be doing tonight & tomorrow, and later I'll post the official pics with proper details and lighting and dried surfaces.

 

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[old digger]

Nice pieces of petrified wood. In the third photo, they appear to be opalized. Beautiful! You may what to have some of the smaller pieces pollished up.

 

[Chisos]

Very, very, very nice pieces of petrified wood. Daddy-in-law must have missed the sign at Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona that said, "do not touch or we'll kill you". Maybe he got out of the car to stretch his legs and they just hopped into his trunk. Either way you got a nice present. They are not only highly collectable, they are worth some bucks. You think those green crystals were sparkly, do what Old Digger says and get some of this stuff cut and polished up and then you will see sparkly.

 

[ScribbleMuse]

Very, very, very nice pieces of petrified wood. Daddy-in-law must have missed the sign at Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona that said, "do not touch or we'll kill you". Maybe he got out of the car to stretch his legs and they just hopped into his trunk. Either way you got a nice present. They are not only highly collectable, they are worth some bucks. You think those green crystals were sparkly, do what Old Digger says and get some of this stuff cut and polished up and then you will see sparkly.

Wow, really? I didn't think it was worth much if anything--kind of like the agates I'm tripping over in the creek bed I have been picking; they're pretty but too common to be worth "real" money.

I had to laugh out loud at the comment about stretching the legs in AZ, because it's exactly what he may actually do! lol However, these are just a sample of the whole. These were the ones that I picked up from around the old pond landscape gazebo area that his other son did while in high school b/c he'd been considering landscape architecture or horticulture and just messed around the farm doing odd little pockets of paradise (he was really good at that stuff but is now finishing up his PhD in evolutionary biology with a horticulural focus, so no more landscaping since then). Father-in-law was laughing at me while I was loading up my wheelbarrow b/c they're just a slight fraction of what my brother-in-law was picking from, which was a huge pile of the stuff on the back of the farm apparently dug out for the nearby well.

I've been doing historical studies on that property b/c of my new metal detector and have found that it is one of the older settler family homesteads, and a rather successful and prosperous family. The local county histories had biographies of the family up until the date of publication, which was around 1920 I think. The family had immigrated to the area and throughout the entire history, there were long military campaigns overseas for various succeeding males.

I bring up the history b/c it's a possibility it COULD have come from one of them. I honestly never thought of Wisconsin as a major source of any fossilized specimens, much less pet wood, but I've also been finding dozens and dozens of pieces (much, much smaller than the huge chunks FIL gave me) in the same creek as my agates/jaspers. Much of it is obviously wood though agatized (is that the right word?) or perhaps opalized in some of the pieces if the opalized parts in the photos here are the white/translucent stuff? That creek is just a few miles away from his house/farm, so it wouldn't be surprising if indeed they are a natural deposit here.

Yet another and probably most likely explanation would be glacial deposits. I live on the very most edge of the glacial activities, so the creek I pick is mostly glacial till and therefore features more unique specimens than the local natural materials.

If they're worth any money, I am sure that the next few days will be busy for everyone involved. Father-in-law, hubby, and myself will all be whistling as we work any and all others still piled up around the well and farm. I also bet that it won't be as funny the next time I do seemingly odd/eccentric activities like hauling huge rocks out and scrubbing them clean! lol

 

[Chisos]

I joke around and indeed they might come from your own area. You are having fun in life and that's what counts. If you look at some rock shops online you may find that the agates and jaspers and that petrified wood is cut, polished and down here(southwest) used in bolo ties, bookends, rings, belt buckles and just decoration. They are beautiful and not cheap. We buy them, wear them and sell them to the tourists. A decade ago I was partners in an antique store and we stocked and sold stuff like that too. I couldn't believe that people would just buy rocks. My better half(significant other, friend with benefits-what the hell is politically correct now?) bet me she could take them to a flea market and sell them. We went to a very poor, outdoor place where most people were trying to buy things cheaper. Like 12 pairs of socks for $2.99. POOR- food stamps, welfare poor. Anyway, she sold out in less than an hour. People went crazy over ROCKS. So yeah, down here there's a market. There?

 

[ScribbleMuse]

I'm really not sure. I'm just getting into finding/collecting rocks & minerals again since I abandoned it in childhood and haven't yet connected with any local club or other resource to feel out the market. I started dragging home likely rocks in order to learn how to carve stone but then discovered interest in the entire specimen collection idea, but I'd be totally clueless if I were to attempt a start at dealing/trading/selling specimens, especially of this size.

I've been looking around the Heritage Auction archives and some other online sites about the value of pet wood, and it seems to definitely be most profitable if you concentrate on the sales of polished slabs or building materials. Currently I do not have any suitable equipment whatsoever to even do a simple cut, and now I'm definitely not going to just take a sledgehammer to them. I keep holding off on breaking any of my stuff open until I get a real saw b/c I do not like the idea of potentially pulverizing an interesting piece. With the levels of my ignorance, that is very likely, so trying to learn ways to tell whether it's a breakable sort .

So, in a bit I'll start the heavy duty cleaning of all these, and then will post pics of the cleaned items. Afterward, guess it'll be a waiting period while I begin to save up for and gather the proper tools. I've been dying to slice into so many of the agate-type rocks!

Also, looking at the photos on searching pet wood for deeper detail, I'm actually collecting quite a bit of various forms of petrified flora, and if I'm correct in comparing some of the pieces I'd mentally labeled as generic quartz types are actually potential opalized wood.