Okay, I am not sure if it is just me, or I am late to the party here. I fairly recently started following instagram and I am amazed at how expensive turquoise is getting. People cut and sell stones on instagram. Some people don’t even put the carat weight or whether it is stabilized or natural and they consistently get $60 per stone (maybe 15 carats or so).
I am not complaining, but it just seems like there are a lot of people who are making jewelry and using turquoise. Is it just me or have you noticed this as well?
Yes I also noticed this. But I think a lot of it is misidentified. Its buyer beware.
Definitely buyer beware as @JW states. There are a handful of very reputable turquoise dealers on Instagram, you just have to find them.
Also just my two cents, I just took a lapidary class and I got to cut up some turquoise cabs (I’ll try and post pics later) but it really gave me insight into how much time and money it costs just to make a single cab.
Just talking about how much time is used, it took be about two hours to cab up my first piece of turquoise, and it was just a simple round dome cut. I’m sure it normally doesn’t take that long, but if you’re paying me to cut cabochons by the hour, I don’t think $15-$20 per hour is unreasonable.
Let’s not also forget that each cabochon has to be purchased as a rough stone. That rough stone has to be sliced in slabettes (you would need to purchase a table saw or a miter saw to cut them). Those slabs then need to be stabilized. A proper stabilization would probably take you 2-3 to cure. So again, that’s more time, plus the costs of all of your resins, epoxies, backing and tools that you may need.
THEN we can start shaping and cabbing the stones. I used about 8 different diamond polishing wheels to get the right kind of cut and shine on my cabs. Each of those wheels costs anywhere between $30-$80 each depending on the brand and size.
So to summarize, yes, those darn little cabs are getting way too expensive. But It’s also an expensive hobby!
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That is a good point! I guess we never think about labor and equipment. Even with experience it still takes a lot of work.
Then, if it is put into jewelry, I can see it climbing in price pretty quickly.