My name is Richard and resided in Globe AZ from 1973 through 1979. During that time I had the privilege of working at LW Hardy Turquoise Co. Inc. on his concessions beginning at Pinto Valley (Castle Dome) and ending my tenure at the Sleeping Beauty mine.
I started as a picker and worked up to a cat skinner and heavy equipment operator. I must have dug tons of turq out of those mines! Not to mention some other lovely mineral specimens.
As you know it’s easy for turquoise to get in your blood and, in my case, stay there! I have a good collection of high-grade turq specimens as well as some jewelry.
I just found this forum today and joined. I look forward to prattling with you all.
Welcome to Turquoise People!! You will enjoy the forum. It’s especially good for those of us who love to discuss Native American jewelry (and turquoise in general). Looking forward to hearing more from you!
I’ve been to Globe several times (beautiful area), and have an Apache friend who lives on the San Carlos Rez, although I haven’t seen her in years.
Welcome! The reason why I joined this forum originally was to get information on a small collection that I inherited. I stayed to learn as much as I could from folks like yourself, who I’m sure in one way or another can help me to channel what my grandfather has always loved so much about this stone.
Looking forward to your stories of the south lands!
Your time in Globe and work at the Sleeping Beauty mine must have been fascinating, and it sounds like you have some impressive turquoise stories and collections.
Just a quick post. This is a part of my collection.
There is a long story that goes with this watch cuff, but it at one time belonged to L.W. Hardy. I acquired it from his estate. I’ll tell the story when I have more time.
It’s in 14k gold furniture on sterling back plate and I believe the turquoise to be Kingman. No sign of resin so most likely unstabilized. Mostly pyrite matrix. Makers mark is SG. I have researched this mark but found nothing definitive on the artist. Watch is a 1970s vintage 21 jewel Bulova. It keeps time to COSC certification specs. Just amazing to me. The cuff weighs 194 grams total including the watch.
If you have any ideas on who the maker (SG) might be I would appreciate your input. It’s likely Navajo.
I was wondering the same thing about the origin being Ithaca being that Ithaca Peak is very close to Hardy’s mine concessions and in the Kingman Mineral Park mining district.
I do know that Hardy was wearing this cuff when he came to visit us at Sleeping Beauty one afternoon, and as he walked the pit, he would stop and talk with us and show his gold cuff to anyone who showed interest.
I remember him showing it to a group of 4 or 5 of us and seeing that big red Bulova sticking out like a suppurating nipple on a boar hog. It seemed quite gaudy to me. One of the guys had the courage to ask him what it was worth and he said it cost him a total of $5500.00 to have made. That was around 1977 or so. There was a lot of chatter about it the rest of the day.
Mr. Hardy never seemed shy about how he started and how he earned his position in life. That’s another story by itself. .
Hardy was truly a good man, from my experience, and always treated his workers with respect, paying us mine scale wages with no union. I worked for him for 6 years, starting out as a “picker” and ending up as a cat skinner mostly building roads and mucking overburden.
Fascinating story, thanks for sharing. It must have been very interesting working in those mines.
Another reason I wondered about Ithaca Peak is because it looks like the pyrite in yours has more of the chunky brassy/goldish (as vs silver) colored pieces of pyrite that is often mentioned. I have a ring with a big Ithaca Peak stone (the Navajo artist was confident because of who he got the turquoise from), that looks different from yours, because it’s got very fine webbing, and the pyrite is practically unnoticeable until you step out in the sun, but then it sparkles gold. Yours looks more like the pictures I’ve seen of classic Ithaca Peak. But we all know that Kingman can look like about any other turquoise out there, so who knows!
I’m not sure of the origin of the the turquoise in your Cuff, but I have been around lots of Bisbee turq and it doesn’t really have the characteristics of “Bisbee Blue”, however, you never know about varieties of turq coming out of the same mines.
To me, Bisbee Blue from the Lavendar pit will primarily have that chocolate brown matrix with the smoky, gorgeous electric blue that causes involuntary sphincter contractions when you see it.
You have a lovely cuff that looks like the smith took a lot of time to make. Not sloppy at all! I would love to see it all buffed up for Sunday go-to meeting!
link was posted to an earlier topic here where the cuff has a similar hallmark to your cuff and the discussion that followed ending up as unidentified back then
My cuff…I posted that quite a while ago & unfortunately still don’t know anymore about it than when I started. Does my cuff look like Steeve Grant’s work?
