Hi All, Couldn’t resist buying this pendant tonight. Love the detail in silverwork and the interesting stone. I think they are lotus leaves around the bezel. Looks to have some age, also thinking it may be a one-off or custom piece as I haven’t been able to find anything to compare it to. Hoping to learn where this may have originated from and possibly what the turquoise is.
tested as .925
total weight 75.3g
pendant measures 1 3/4" x 2 3/4"
hallmarks/markings, none
Hi–it looks like a Tibetan piece to me. There are tons of recent pendants being made in Nepal and India, but this looks like a nice, older one to me. They’re really hard to date because the styles and ways of working didn’t change much at all over time. Sometimes the turquoise is much older than the settings too. People at bead collector forums are often really interested and knowledge about Tibetan turquoise, but from what I’ve seen, some of them think there were/are actual Tibetan turquoise mines, and others think the turquoise in Tibetan jewelry is Chinese. Nice find!
Thank you jackdaw for the lots of information you shared. It’s good you shared the bead collector forums tip (which I would not of thought of). I will check-out and try to learn more. I have had a hard time finding resources to learn about turquoise from other parts of the world. After the pendant is shipped and arrives I will add a photo of the stone in natural light so we can get a better look at it. Thanks again, Sara
It’s such a nice piece–lovely stone, and I like the side view, where it seems to rise out of the vegetation. Those forums tend to be really old style, but there’s a lot of solid info about old stone beads in there. Back in the 90s or so, the Tibetan pieces were relatively inexpensive compared with Native American pieces, but the good, old ones have really caught up. I think you did well to snag this one. You might want to look at a site like garuda trading (no affiliation) to get feeling for this.
I am learning a lot when looking through the Garuda Trading Site. There is so much info about shapes, symbols, etc. for the individual listings. Nice learning site. Thank you again jackdaw.
Talked with a dealer on the other side of the world about this piece. He said this is a pendant crafted from a Chinese turquoise bead. It is likely it was intentionally broken in half so that it could be framed in silver. He believed it is a ‘dyed’ turquoise bead (hence the intense color) made in the last 30 years. The silverwork is Nepalese. Here is a photo of bead hole and a close-up.
Hello, this looks newly made from Nepal, looks of turquoise are odd, intentionally made like this, maybe died and of course stabilised. Any tibetan old turquoise’s have shine in them with dirt, they don’t have dull appearance in actual, if it dull then it must be 10-20 years old newly made out of stabilised, I know because I have seen these here in Himalayas, lots of Tibetans and Nepalis sells these fakes to tourists here.
