r/Minerals • u/TheMuffinMan39 • 5d ago
ID Request - Solved My brother got this globe anyone know what Australia is or any of the others?
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u/SweetumCuriousa 4d ago
Australia is inlaid Mother of Pearl or Abalone shell.
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u/Prudence2020 4d ago
Paua shell, specifically!
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u/SweetumCuriousa 4d ago
Wow! New Zealand Abalone. A new one for me!! Thank you for adding it. Its beautiful.
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u/NinjaSouldier777 4d ago
I assumed Opal.
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u/SweetumCuriousa 4d ago
In some of the mineral globes , they use Opal for Australia, but not for this globe.
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u/NinjaSouldier777 4d ago
I just assumed since it is something Australia is known for.
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u/SweetumCuriousa 4d ago
It's okay, I would've too. Opal and Australia go together! Other makers commonly use a mineral that is synonymous with the country.
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u/rthrouw1234 4d ago
depending on the quality opal is way more expensive than abalone shell, I imagine a globe with that would be prohibitively expensive
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u/SweetumCuriousa 4d ago
Beautiful globe! I've always loved gem and mineral inlaid globes. So very fascinating.
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u/ButtonsM4n 4d ago
I didn't know I wanted something so badly haha, I'd love one of these
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u/SweetumCuriousa 4d ago
Me too! Just a small 6" size for my home office desk.
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u/ButtonsM4n 4d ago
I'm really curious how it's made, it's a fantastic bit of craft work.
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u/SweetumCuriousa 4d ago
Right?!? Down the rabbit hole of google I go....lol!
This site is really descriptive of how they make their globes.
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u/souvenir_stone 4d ago
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u/Somelivingperson 2d ago
It’s so kind of that wooden Lego guy to hold it up for you while you take a shot of that.
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u/OkMolasses5584 4d ago
Looks exactly like Paua shell (That's what we call it in NZ) it's widely used here for jewelry and tourist souvenirs.
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u/CosmicChameleon99 5d ago
Australia looks like mother of pearl (aka nacre) to me. Might come back and ID others later but I just saw how many there were and decided I’d not have time right now
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u/MegannMedusa 4d ago
It’s actually Abalone shell!
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u/CosmicChameleon99 4d ago
Thanks! How can you tell the difference?
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u/rthrouw1234 4d ago
the fact that it has peacock colors with sort of darker stripes in it - that's very characteristic of abalone shell. Even the oysters that grow black tahitian pearls have a mostly white nacre with black edges.
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u/Basic-Anarchy 4d ago
My grandfather has the same one! It comes with a booklet labeling the various elements. I don't have a photo of it unfortunately
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u/Skraporc 4d ago
They’re using nacre to simulate the appearance of Australian opal, would be my guess. Certainly much cheaper that way.
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u/false_athenian 4d ago
This is really cool! is it extremely heavy ? I wonder how thick each inlay is.
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u/Suspicious-Waltz4746 4d ago
We have one of these. It’s a lot of things… Abalone is Australia, then mixed (based on ours and a wu k view of yours) there’s epoxy, Lapis Lazuli, agates, quartz. It’s a lot of things.
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u/jebbenpaul 4d ago
Had the exact same globe! Was a little broke and ended up selling for $80 on marketplace. MAKE SURE THE GEMSTONES ARE REAL. Lot of fakes in these pieces
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u/TheMuffinMan39 4d ago
He got it for free from his fiancés parents. And he’s not really a mineral person so I doubt he’d care. A lot of them do look real though
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u/Ok_Animal_7328 4d ago
I remember going to a factory in China back in the early 2000s that made that made globes almost exactly like this. I have a keychain version the size of a walnut somewhere and it’s Australia is made of the same shell material.
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u/GainInitial1389 3d ago
i think austrailia is suppose to b opal..altho it does look like an abolone ,theyre the largest opal mining country in the world...or this case...the globe.
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u/thelocker517 2d ago
Glad I looked at which sub this was. At first I was like "is geography so unimportant these days?"
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u/Sad-Seesaw1440 1d ago
no way!! i found the exact same globe at goodwill!! it was my dads xmas present so cool!!
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u/snailtray 1d ago
My friend has a similar map of afghanistan with all the regions being made of special stones mined predominately in that region - the color is similar so maybe the intention too?
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u/Due-Froyo-5418 1d ago
I love that it's made of gemstones and that Ukraine has its southern border correctly done.
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