Curious what equipment afficionados around here thought about these guides...

I read online these artistic agate stripper guides are made by a French artist- not sure who, could not find much on line, but one person said they cost upwards of $225 each. A Brice Fabre posted this images on his facebook page, but not much else is know about them:

 

 

Doing a google search on agate guides came up with only one good hit:

J. E. Arguello Rod Company

 

Established in 1991 – fine Bamboo Fly Rods are hand-crafted one at a time with the greatest attention to detail that is humanly possible, the process starts with an interview to make sure the Bamboo Fly Rod you get is ‘one of a kind’ made just for you!

Although there are many suppliers of the hardware that goes into a bamboo fly rod, and these companies make some very nice hardware, I am continually trying to make my rods unique. I started out making much of my own hardware and as supplies of raw materials became more and more difficult to obtain, I started using some of the readily available hardware. As time has passed I have again been able to acquire a fairly large stock of nickel silver tubing and have also made the necessary tools and dies to draw the needed ferrules and real seat hardware and twist the snake guides. I am also once again making the agate stripping guides for my rods. I have spent many hours refining these processes and now make most of the components used in my fly rods. This ensures that you are getting a fly rod that is truly one of a kind!

I am now offering Agate Stripping Guides to my fellow rod makers. These are the finest Agate Strippers avaliable. I make these stripping guides as you would make jewlery. Each one is hand made and the Agate rings are hand bezeled which allows me to use some very fine rings to make my Ultralite Agate Strippers. Below are some images of the Agate Rings and the colors avaliable. I have a large supply of red Agate rings that are mostly solid in color, some have some mottling and some are banded. These rings vary in color from Brown to Red to Amber. The solid red color is from the Carnelian family, here is a good explaination that  may answer any and all questions you may have. Agates I also have avaliable some specialty colors: milky white, aqua, blue, green, coffee, and even a few pink ones! Price for my Agate Stripping Guides is $25 USD ($30 for black plated frames) + $7.50 shipping ($15 USD international) USPS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just curious, can agate hold up to superlines and braid and not develop a groove or cut channel in the agate over time? Is it as hard as ceramics? Looks great if nothing else...

 

Very cool. Thanks for posting.

I had a set of agate guides a buddy gave me, gosh, a long while back now. I wrapped my first rod guides with those, replacing stainless ones on a glass spinning rod. Don't remember anything about performance with them. I imagine they'd be heavy.

That first one in your pics is of a mayfly -almost certainly Ephemera danica -the largest mayfly in Europe which brings the biggest trout in the streams up to dry flies. Anglers spend long winter nights tying flies -and apparently wrapping on rod guides- for that special 2-3 week event. Same here in the US, for some related mayflies.