Photo: fordite.com
Car lovers usually buy pendants or spend hundreds of dollars to collect the limited edition car models they get from the gift shops. But what would you do if we’d tell you that you can actually buy jewelry made out of layers of car paint?
These stones might look like agate, a stone valued for its beauty and used in the jewelry industry, but in fact they are an actual piece of genuine American history. These colorful gemstones, called Fordite or Detroit Agate, are actually a result of paint deposits from old car paintings racks. The story starts decades ago, when car painting was made by hand.
Believe it or not, recycling was going on long before Greenpeace ever started fighting for the environment. When the cars were painted by hand on long production lines, the enamel colors the workers were using in the old auto factories would drip off and dry on the tracks and skids that the car frames were manipulated on. Those layers of paint were hardened repeatedly in the ovens where the vehicle’s bodies went into, to cure the paint.
Some of the crafty workers, with an eye for beauty, decided this byproduct is worth saving. They took the super-cured, patterned like psychedelic agate, cut them and polished them. It was a short time until they became real pieces of jewelry.
Soon enough, word got around and more and more “stonehounds” started showing up at the auto factories offering to help removing the paint. Imagine how it would be like to own small bits of a 1936, 1928 and 1936 Ford models, all in one.
For those intersted, there is more than one shop where you can buy them from. Whether you'll go for the stones or the necklesses it will cost you up to $100 each. Considering that those smooth colors hide untold stories about classic American cars, we’ll have to admit it would be pretty cool to actually own one.
Believe it or not, recycling was going on long before Greenpeace ever started fighting for the environment. When the cars were painted by hand on long production lines, the enamel colors the workers were using in the old auto factories would drip off and dry on the tracks and skids that the car frames were manipulated on. Those layers of paint were hardened repeatedly in the ovens where the vehicle’s bodies went into, to cure the paint.
Some of the crafty workers, with an eye for beauty, decided this byproduct is worth saving. They took the super-cured, patterned like psychedelic agate, cut them and polished them. It was a short time until they became real pieces of jewelry.
Soon enough, word got around and more and more “stonehounds” started showing up at the auto factories offering to help removing the paint. Imagine how it would be like to own small bits of a 1936, 1928 and 1936 Ford models, all in one.
For those intersted, there is more than one shop where you can buy them from. Whether you'll go for the stones or the necklesses it will cost you up to $100 each. Considering that those smooth colors hide untold stories about classic American cars, we’ll have to admit it would be pretty cool to actually own one.
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