Inspired by this recent topic from @Bmpdvm Clear, “Robins egg blue” turquoise opinions i thought why not open a topic about polychrome turquoise? It’s some of my favorite type of turquoise and there’s not a whole lot i could find about it in the database. I like to count black and white too. I’ll start with what i have, i only have some in rough form. Curious to see what else is around!
a few from Royston in this pic:
Kaolin Blue, think this is related to Turquoise Mountain:
Armenian:
Thanks for this post @Bluegreen! I’ve never seenKaolin Blue or Armenian. I’m out of town now, but can hardly wait to get home and se what I can find to contribute😄
You are very welcome @Bmpdvm ! I am curious to see what you (and the other Turquoise People) will come up with (
Here I go splitting hairs but where do they come up with the “kaolin” part?
Kaolin is a hydrated aluminum silicate
Turquoise is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminum
Yeah @StevesTrail…isn’t Kaolin a whitish-tan clay? And if I were to think of any color, it would be pink, ya know pepto (even though Kaopectate is white!). Just my crazy brain.
Then there’s this:
“Blue Kaolin Clay* is a lightweight cosmetic clay infused with herbal Indigo naturalis, which is an ancient herb”
You get the 
@Bmpdvm. Kaolin is a clay.
I don’t exactly know. Got this piece from a miner, in a bag labeled Kaolin Blue Arizona. Perhaps it’s slang for a certain type of matrix color for stones from Turquoise Mt. (another bag was labelled Turquoise Mt. Blue Arizona Mohave County for instance.) Not much info about it. The only sort of official mention i could find for the term in relation to Kingman is 1 mention on their site:
I don’t think there is an issue with the turquoise @Bluegreen . I just get annoyed at jerks that have to make 
up.
Ah i see hehe. I guess i don’t really mind if it could help to pinpoint a certain look of turquoise
Kaolin can easily disperse which would make the turquoise rock extremely weak in kaolin matrix areas providing there is actually kaolin in the matrix. Maybe I need what that seller is smoking to understand better 
I’m with you, @Bluegreen. I don’t mind descriptive names. If you say “Birdseye Kingman,” or “Smokey Bisbee,” I can picture it better than just Kingman or Bisbee. Granted, it can get to be too much, but we do this all the time with all kinds of things.
This is being sold from the Kingman mine owners themselves, so you could always contact them to find out more. I doubt they would sell stuff that would fall apart. Maybe it’s stabilized.
Kaolin clay is what I immediately thought as well when I read it -
Definition: " kaolin, soft white clay that is an essential ingredient in the manufacture of china and porcelain and is widely used in the making of paper, rubber, paint, and many other products. Kaolin is named after the hill in China (Kao-ling) from which it was mined for centuries"
Maybe a new marketing gimmick they came up with.
Thanks for the insights everyone. I was thinking about editing out the Kaolin bit from my post as it seems a bit controversial, but decided to leave it as is for now.
From what i can tell so far the term seems to have been coined by the people at Kingman themselves. The oldest mention i could find in this context is from 6 years ago, when they advertised some of their turquoise as “Kaolin matrix Kingman turquoise”. On another occasion they used the term “Kaolin High Blue Kingman Turquoise” (“Stabilized Kingman Turquoise with kaolin gray/black matrix.”)
I get the impression that it has been branded by the company under the name Kaolin Blue for a short period of time at least. Fwiw re-sellers mention that they have bought this turquoise mine-direct (“Kaolin Blue Turquoise rough I purchased direct from the Kingman mine”). Also the gentleman (miner/distributor) that i bought this from mentioned that he bought it from the miner. I would like to add that this seller was not acting like a jerk at all, as a matter of fact i haven’t been treated better in the ± 2 years that i’m buying turquoise.
To summarize here’s what i could string together:
A mine in Northern Arizona, a section of Turquoise Mountain. It has been offered under the names Kaolin Blue, Turquoise Mountain Kaolin, Kingman Kaolin, Kingman Kaolin Blue. I see the term Kaolin mostly used as a means to describe a certain color of matrix.
Lastly i found this interesting in this context, it’s from a listing for old Kingman natural turquoise: “the white crystals are Quartz, the gray to brown material is Kaolin Clay, and the black areas are Hematite. If you wish to use it in jewelry, it would require stabilization.” (my pieces are indeed stabilized).
If i’ve been incomplete or incorrect than please point it out. I can edit my posts, in order to keep the information as correct possible.
I’ll throw these out there!
A #8 polychrome turquoise ring by Don Chee! It’s Chunky!
Also a cuff with unknown turquoise with polychrome matrix!
Thanks for the info! I tried to dig a bit also, and found some of the same things, but not as much as you did. The video that someone posted not too long ago mentioned that the Kingman mine exists because there’s a copper mine nearby, and if the copper mine closes so will Kingman. So I don’t blame them for wanting to sell as much as they can. And stabilization isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not everybody can afford natural turquoise, and there’s not as much of it out there.
One of these years when I go out to visit my friend in Phoenix, I really want to get up there and visit Kingman mine. Thought about it this year, but we just didn’t have time for it.
And don’t worry about it being “controversial,” we like to discuss; I learned a lot from this thread. Including the fact that I’ve never heard of polychrome turquoise till here.
So I have a question. What exactly is polychrome turquoise? Is Royston or Sonoran Gold that has blue and green in it considered polychrome? Guess I can Google it… I just now wondered, because I saw the two things that @AC posted.
@Ziacat It just means more than one color. That Royston would qualify.
That makes sense, thanks. I did actually just Google it and thought that’s what it meant, but I wasn’t sure if they had to fade or blend in a certain way. So this would be considered polychrome? It’s Royston.
I’m starting to feel @StevesTrail pain - more marketing 
But this discussion is very interesting!
