Sandstone Coasters

Over the years, I have had all kinds of different coasters, including marble coasters and silver coasters with a felt bottom.

I don't really know what the makers were thinking. I guess they were imagining that coasters are intended to protect expensive furniture from water rings that can be left behind if you place a glass directly on nice wood furniture, like coffee tables and end tables and desks. 

So presumably some idiot thought marble or silver would appeal to rich people as it looks expensive and goes with the decor.

In reality, most of them do nothing to actually protect your wood furniture. Most of them really just delay the process of damaging your furniture while the moisture accumulates on top of the coaster for a while before it finally runs off and creates a small lake on your beloved wood furniture.

This would be a problem for me even if I did not care about protecting the appearance of the furniture because of my serious health problems. It's a problem because wet things grow mold. So even when I began routinely laying a folded up paper towel on my marble and silver coasters, this did not really protect the furniture -- the damp paper towel could get the table wet -- and the paper towels would also eventually grow mold and turn just gross. It was awful.

Additionally, I hated adding folded up paper towels on top of my marble or silver coasters. It was an extra hassle and also destroyed the classy look, which was a large part of the point of getting coasters of that sort.

Then I ran into sandstone coasters. 

Sandstone absorbs water. Unlike marble or silver, condensation does not pool on top of them. As long as you let them dry out periodically, they actually protect your furniture without a lot of hassle. 

They also look really neat. Like marble coasters, they are made of real stone and have the visual interest of natural material. But, unlike slick marble -- which is excellent for other jobs and I had a lot of marble items I loved -- sandstone actually works well as a material for a coaster.