Yes Dean, an agate it is, It was customary at the time to offer agate tip tops as an option and sometimes standard to have one agate and one wire or nickel silver tip top on quality rods. Agate was the smoothest and hardest (though fragile) available at the time. I am sure it did effect the action on this featherweight. The lower end rods had untempered wire of brass, plated or not, nickel silver, or untempered steel. the constant movement of line through the tip top ring often wore grooves that chewed up the silk lines and ruined them. The Perfection tip company Denver, Colorado, came out with a smooth tempered steel tip top that reduced this significantly and by the late
1920's their tip tops were used by many many companies on their rods. Winchester had a "roto tip" that was under their patent, came out in 1931 or so very nice on heavier rods but still heavy on a delicate rod such as this. Best,Paul
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