Thoughts on these turquoise stones?

Lately i’ve been getting very interested in turquoise with webbed matrix. Where i live the majority of turquoise that turns up for sale looks like the classic Sleeping Beauty (which i also adore). Eventually i did manage to find some (affordable) webbed stones, namely in the necklace in the pictures. Initially i fell for one spiderweb stone, and then stone after stone i got mesmerized by all of them. So i bought the necklace, together with a rough stone with much dark webbing on it.

The necklace was labelled as vintage Navajo. To me it sounds plausible and it certainly feels vintage, with a lot of nicotine traces, but i am still very much a newbie at all of this.

After lots of comparing photo’s online my guess is that the stones might be Kingman turquoise. And i’m hoping to find out if there could be natural turquoise among them. Of course i could be totally wrong.

Since i absolutely love the necklace i’d like to wear it as much as possible, but after actually holding it am wondering if it might be a little fragile for that. In one of the close-up pics you can see that one of the heishi was chipped, and that the rope at that spot is not 100% strong anymore. I wouldn’t want to change anything about the necklace, but at the same time i shudder at the thought of it breaking while being outside.

Anyway i’m very happy with my purchases and would appreciate to hear your opinion






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Gosh, I don’t know that I have a guess on the turquoise in the necklace, except so much is stabilized Kingman. Or maybe could be Chinese? Some of the webbing doesn’t look quite like Kingman to me.

Maybe the big stone is Chinese, but it also has that little flowery webbing that one of my Kingman stones has. But maybe Chinese turquoise has that also. I’m not very familiar with anything beyond American turquoise.

If you’re worried about the necklace breaking, you can check with Perry Null since they do great repair work. I had one restrung at a place in Albuquerque and they did a good job, but they have closed.

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Thanks for your thoughts. I agree that the rock could be Chinese, mainly because of it’s colour, which looks more green than blue to me. But again i know very little about turquoise.

Also thanks for the repair suggestion. They look very reputable indeed, but i’m a bit hesitant to send the necklace overseas*. And for the time being i want to keep it near and enjoy and wear it at home.

  • the mail system in my area has been quite messy lately. E.g. with the items in this post the delivery guy rushed them to neighbors elsewhere in my street before even ringing my doorbell once. I was in time to intercept the package because i happened to see his van from my window.

p.s. the reason that i think that the stones in the necklace might be natural, or perhaps treated with a natural method, is because of the cracking of some of the little heishi beads. There are a few that are chipped on my necklace, and i suspect one or two might be missing as well.
Also at one point i could choose between 2 necklaces, and the other one had stones that (in my eyes) resembled the ones that i bought. One of it’s larger stones had broken in half, causing me to believe that the stones were a) not died howlite or the like and 2) perhaps had not been injected with hardcore plastic resin.
Furtermore i have been looking for grey-ish epoxy-like residue blobs on the stones (like i’ve seen pointed out elsewhere on this forum), but can’t find any.
But all the above is based on gut feelings and not actual facts.

I can’t speak to whether they are natural or not; I’m not very good at picking up on that. But they don’t have to have the grey resin to be stabilized; I have stones in which the stabilizing is better done, and they don’t have any resin showing. My understanding is to have cut stones (as in heishi) they would mostly be stabilized, because a lot of natural stone is not strong enough to withstand the cutting. So if they were natural I would think it would be pretty expensive.

I’m thinking maybe the turquoise in the necklace is possibly Chinese. It doesn’t look quite like Kingman to me.


There’s something about these stones that remind me of the Chinese turquoise I googled. But :person_shrugging:

I have a similar necklace with Kingman (stated on the pawn ticket) that I love. I hope you can enjoy it even though you’re worried about the string breaking. And I would be hesitant to send it oversees also. Maybe someday you can visit the American Southwest and get it fixed!

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Thanks again for replying @Ziacat, i appreciate it. It’s a lot to take in, but i am truly fascinated by, and enjoying it all. And i’m definately enjoying the necklace and keep staring at it. Sometimes i find it hard to grasp that turquoise apparently took millions of years to form.
And funny that you mention that because lately i’ve been wondering how nice it would be to visit the American Southwest someday (:smile:

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You are welcome! Right now I am on a long 11 hour drive allllll the way north then west through the state of Michigan (lower and upper) to visit my brother in law (I’m not driving right now of course :laughing:), so this is helping me pass the time.

The longer you are on this forum, the more you will learn. I had a decent amateur knowledge from reading and spending a lot of time out west (which allowed me to see a lot of turquoise and Native work in person), but am learning way more detail here. Hopefully you can visit someday. I’m much closer than Europe, but the Midwest where I live is still a haul. We hope to drive to Colorado this Sept, but even that is about 17 hours.

It’s a really pretty necklace. I like to wear a 2 or 3 together occasionally (but some of mine are smaller and thinner).

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That sounds awesome @Ziacat, i wish you and yours a great roadtrip! This forum is a real treasure of information, which i truly appreciate. All the more since there seems to be so little knowledge about turquoise in my country.
And thank you, i also mostly wear 2 or 3 smaller necklaces. Because i love them and also believe that they are beneficial to health.

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Looks like the necklace was restrung, that shell just doesn’t seem right. When I first look at this necklace I immediately think it is something really good. It is always difficult to tell from an image, but you might have something special here. The big rock looks like Chinese.

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Thanks so much for your response @Jason , i really appreciate it.

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Took some better close-up photos today, i like to magnify them on the screen and study and enjoy the patterns. Thought i’d share them, since the earlier pics i posted don’t show much detail. Also had to share the little visitor that i have on my screen since today, bizarrely enough (:





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If you appreciate those little critter visitors @Bluegreen, you should read “Never Home Alone” by Rob Dunn. I won’t spoil the surprises.

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Well, i think one or two of these tiny ones are funny. But the bigger they get the further i try to stay away from 'em. And i even took a little sprint once when there was a tarantula in the dining i was at. So i’m not sure i dare to read your recommendation, but i appreciate it none the less hehe. Right now i feel a bit bad for the little guy, because the spot he’s chosen to weave his web won’t stand a chance at lasting

edit: there’s at least three of them running around and making webs now. Perhaps i should read that book :wink:

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One last thing that i’m really wondering is if the stones on the necklace would have been sourced from one batch of material, or if the necklace might have been an assemblage of different batches of stones? Some of them look so different from one another.
I do understand that i’m asking many questions, for which i apoligize.
By now i do fully understand the importance of proper provenance with regards to identifying Turquoise stones.

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I had the same question about one of my necklaces that I posted a week or so ago.

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I now have a (probably pointless) suspicion that mine has stones from more than one batch. Because among the larger stones there are a few where the drilled holes are quite a bit larger in diameter than the rest of the stones on the necklace.
The ones with the bigger holes also look a little different in appearance to me. Less ‘stern’ matrix, that seems to fade out a little as opposed to abrubtly ending. They also differ in shape from the others, more flat and ovally shaped.

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There’s no need for “suspicion” if by that you mean a negative feeling. Bead and heishe necklaces often were composed of what a jeweler had in their stash. Also, bead necklaces might have been restrung over time, picking up or losing stones along the way. Some heishe necklaces have older beads mixed in with more recent.

Can’t speak to whether this is stabilized or natural material. For comfort in wearing (aside from safety) it may be a good idea to get it restrung with either a clasp or neck wrap, but that’s my own preference. Can’t tolerate a thin string on the neck.

By the way, what do you mean by “nicotine traces”?

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Thanks a lot @chicfarmer ! That is very clarifying to read, about the selection of stones on these types of necklaces. And i chose the word suspicion wrong. A better wording would have been hunch, or feeling.

I definitely am looking to get it restrung. Perhaps with some good string, hemp maybe, but i have to look at my options more in depth. I will certainly also explore your suggestion for either a clasp or neck wrap. Strength of the necklace will be of most importance, and that the material will be natural.

By nicotine traces i meant that everything seemingly had a ‘coating’ of nicotine and tar on it. That the material appears to have been exposed to much tobacco/ cigar smoke over x amount of years. I recognize it from having smoked myself for lengthy periods of time. The stones were sticky from it and imo it is especially visible in the string, where the knots are. That ochre /brownish discoloration. The bigger rock left a residue of it on the damp cloth i cleaned it with.

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Hi Bluegreen, If you are concerned about sending it away to get restrung, you could do it yourself. I restring pearls as part of my business and it’s pretty easy. You don’t have to put knots in between the turquoise stones, just string them in the order they are on the original necklace. I’m not sure what type of string is used to string them but once you find out you could find some online. That way you can wear and enjoy your beautiful necklace. Maybe look on YouTube and find some restringing videos to help you :grinning:

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Hi @CyanideRose18 , thanks so much for your reply! I actually was thinking of doing it myself. I saw a video from a lady restringing a modern necklace and thought to myself that it seemed quite do-able, if i’d choose a quiet moment to do it. Didn’t mention it because i didn’t wanna come across as some type of brute hehehe. After the weekend i’ll have more downtime and will study my options & the materials.

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