Right: a pair of Fordite cufflinks by Florida-based jeweller Pamela Huizenga
MY OTHER CUFFLINK IS A CORVETTE Dried paint deposits harvested from automotive production lines are being polished up and transformed into valuable gemstones. Dagenham agate, anyone? Words by Alex Moore
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"Fordite" is the name given to layers of automotive spray-paint that over a decade or more, dry and harden to form a beautiful gem-like substance. It’s also known as Detroit agate or motor agate, as most of it can be traced back to the car factories of Michigan’s Motor City. Since the 1960s, resourceful factory employees have periodically pocketed the hardened overspray that accumulates in the tracks and skids of the painting bays, often when the models are changed. They had no prescribed use for this brightly coloured deposit, other than as a psychedelic ornament; it just seemed a shame to throw it away. Eagle-eyed lapidarist Pamela Huizenga stumbled across a raw piece at an auction in 2003. “The guy selling it had no idea what it was,” she recalls. “I did. I offered him ten bucks and he almost bit my hand off.” That piece would now be worth around 30-40 times that sum, largely thanks to Huizenga and other jewellers cutting, shaping and polishing Fordite
