Hi - So happy I found this forum! I recently bought these stones as part of a lot, at auction. Unfortunately, the collector only had some pieces labeled as being “Nevada” turquoise. I’m assuming that just means he knew they were from mines in Nevada vs. New Mexico or Arizona?
Any help in identifying any of these stones would be a HUGE help. I’m planning to use the pieces in new jewelry creations and inlay work and would like to be able to let buyers know where the stones likely come from. Thanks!
Dang. That’s a lot of pretty turquoise. Too much for me to even try to make an educated guess. To answer your first question, yes, I’m assuming the seller means that the turquoise was mined from Nevada mines. Without good provenance there’s no way any of us can tell you for sure where your stones came from. I’ve asked numerous times on here where members think some of my turquoise might be from, because it’s fun to know. But if I was selling it I would never label it as such, because I don’t know it as a fact. I think you just need to tell your customers that you don’t know exactly where the turquoise came from; nothing wrong with that.
Thanks very much for looking! I agree; if I don’t know for sure where it’s from, I would just list it as turquoise, or Nevada turquoise, as the case may be.
The ones in the plastic bag kinda look like Dry Creek to me. What do you think? (8-10 are from that bag too). 1-7 are all large beads, and look like they were hand drilled. I love these! Really beautiful. Not sure if I’m going to keep as beads or slice up for inlay, or a little of both.
The second batch of photos are the ones that were labeled as Nevada turquoise - 1000 cts. Mostly, I’m trying to learn. I’m happy with what I paid for the lot. Only one fake in the group, I think, which was this big boulder - weighed about a pound. I sliced off one of the smaller nodules when I got home and its a big knobby blog of resin. great exterior paint job though
I’m not going to hazard any guesses.