Some Pieces Of Fordite,

are worth as much as actual jewels,

but in truth the pieces are scrap, from an age gone by in the automotive industry, photograph by Rhonda/Flickr, Detroit agate, also known as fordite, looks like a precious stone that has formed in the Earth’s crust over millions of years, the sought after Detroit agate actually consists of layers upon layers of enamel paint from old car painting racks in Motor City factories, trapped in these layers of paint are decades of automotive history and unique, vibrant colors that we may never see on cars again,

Fordite formed as over spray paint deposits on car assembly lines and built up into large globs that had to be removed at certain periods of time, some workers recognized their aesthetic value back then and kept large chunks as souvenirs, but most of this stuff was simply thrown away as junk, today there are companies that specialize in the product such as Fordite.com, it is so strange, many years ago I briefly worked as a stove enameler, in Mitcham, Surrey, and one of the jobs every few months was to hack away at the over spray as it eventually would block up the over spray paint extractor fans, if only I realized how much that over spray would be worth today!