Here’s my Ray Lovato Number 8 strand:
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Beautiful! Love that silver cuff (and of course the necklaces) too 
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Yowza @OrbitOrange! Way to “stack” necklaces:smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
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Sadly, I’m not a creative “stacker,” but you’ve given me some ideas😊 What a great single strand turquoise necklace by Ray. Is it long enough to double and wear it as a double strand? Great Thunderbird pendant, and unique silver necklace; both forms I love! Please tell me about the silver necklace and your great cuff!
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@Bmpdvm, I was just watching some more YouTube videos from Twin Rocks. They have numerous necklaces by Ray Lovato that each have turquoise from different mines. It was interesting, because they were talking about some turquoise that Ray called White Horse, and Barry said that they researched it, because it’s an uncommon name. He said what they found was that it’s from the Fox mine, and one of the earlier owners of the mine decided in order to get a larger share of the market, they would name different colors of turquoise from the Fox mine different names (he listed about four). So… what I’m wondering is if Tia Maria turquoise could be something like that. I’m almost ready to email these gentlemen myself, and find out if they’ve heard of Tia Maria. I’ll keep going through the videos and see if it turns up.
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Great sleuthing @Ziacat, I think you could be onto something.
@Bmpdvm thank for your kind compliments! I always enjoy a good stack. One pro tip is to get a few necklace extenders so that you can add or subtract a few inches from your necklaces as needed to optimize the spacing. The Ray necklace probably would be long enough to wrap once and wear as a short double choker, except that it has a wrapped back and that would require a clasp. The bracelet is by Cippy Crazyhorse; I got it from him at the Wheelwright market about five years ago. Ingot silver and deep hand stamping. The necklace is handmade beads by Mary Tom. She calls this her “fingernail” necklace with the elongated beads. The bird is an old UITA 22 pin that I wear an a pendant with a pin to pendant bale converter.
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I knew that was a Cippy cuff…love his work! I haven’t seen any work by Mary Tom, her hand made beads are wonderful! I love these great old bird pins…they are soooo cool!!!
I’m in agreement with you about extenders. I have several made from vintage beads, and some newer. That’s the great thing about my other Ray necklace, it has silver cones and a short extender chain with a clasp…so it’s adjustable. But you can’t beat the wrapped neck with Rays hallmark.
Those 2 strings of beads look great together. Do you know who made the other string?
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I love this presentation and of course the beautiful pieces individually. The turquoise really glows on this great Lovato necklace!
Some folks may know that Mary Tom was the sister of the great jewelry artist Stephen Begay (d.).
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#8 is just classic in my eyes.
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I need to watch those videos, @Ziacat…thanks for watching them for me:laughing:
. The mention of different names for Fox turquoise is really interesting since Ray used a lot of Fox! I’ve always thought the Fox that Ray used and this “Tia Maria” turquoise looked so similar. So…I did a side by side comparison…what do you think?
The 3 strand tab necklace is the Fox; the jacla necklace is the “Tia Maria”
I need to get better comparisons photos, the turquoise in both is a bit lighter color.
And, thanks @chicfarmer for the info on Mary Tom. Good to know!
I like your idea, maybe the Fox mine folks were having a few Tia Maria’s one evening and decided to name a recent vein after the libation (?)
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The Tia Maria wasn’t one of the Fox mine names, I just thought maybe this was the case with other mines.
Wow, they are both beautiful. In my dreams I will buy one someday
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@Bmpdvm unfortunately I don’t know who made the other turquoise bead necklace; it’s vintage, and natural turquoise, which makes me think it might be a little bit older since there are so few artists that make rolled beads with natural turquoise these days. I got that one from one of Zia’s favorite shops, Ogg’s Hogan.
@Bmpdvm wow, you have an impressive Ray Lovato collection! Is the Fox necklace the one pictured with Ray in your photo above? Do you have any others? I just love his work and would love to have more, but will have to be happy with my #8 strand for now. I don’t think that the turquoise in your two necklaces looks dissimilar, so I’m still liking this theory.
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They have bunches of short little videos on certain items in their store (but not nearly everything that’s for sale); there doesn’t appear to be anything recent, even the one on my cuff that I originally viewed was apparently from 8 or 9 yrs ago. I’ve been slowly going through and watching all the jewelry ones, and learning quite a bit. Next I’ll go back and look at the rug and basket videos.
One of the other interesting things they mentioned in a video was that Royston is not one mine. They said it’s a mining district with numerous sites where turquoise is worked. Maybe that explains why sometimes Royston has different names such as Montezuma Royston.
Ziacat, you are correct about Royston. The district covers many square miles and there are 50-100 large and small mines/holes. The Montezumas are claim names and material names like “Highgrade Ridge” are individual workings. A lode mining claim is usually 20 acres and can have multiple mines inside its boundaries. We have one claim that contains about 20 mines…
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Thank you for the info; that’s very interesting. I didn’t know if I was understanding it correctly. Are you one of the owners of the mines? I remember now after looking at your profile that you’re also one of the authors of Turquoise in America. It’s awesome to have you on Turquoise People!
I love Royston Turquoise, but I didn’t own any until this past year.
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Thanks for bring up this topic @SouthWestGEM and @Ziacat. I knew there were a number of claims associated with the Royston mining district (similar to the Kingman mining district). Over the years we’ve visited the Tonopah area multiple times and enjoy the history of the area (including the Historic Mizpah Hotel…Haunted - ooooh!). We’ve always planned to do the mine tour offered by the Ottesons, and spend some time digging, breaking rocks, etc. I’m not even sure they currently still offer that.
One of my questions has to do with terminology; I’m wondering if turquoise recovered from a particular claim area can be called both Royston and, for example Bunker Hill, or if there has been a change in the naming of over the years. In my less than extensive experience it seems all Royston district turquoise is called Royston.
Also, Is there any outward difference between the character of the turquoise recovered from different claims…or am I just being hopeful? Can I place my favorite beautiful blue-green/deep green Royston to a particular claim area?
Thank you again @SouthWestGEM, your expertise is greatly appreciated!
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All very good questions @Bmpdvm! Of course I’m only going by what I saw on the videos from Twin Rocks. They mentioned some separate names when they were talking about it being a mining district, but whenever they feature jewelry with Royston they simply call it Royston. I only mentioned the Montezuma Royston because my Robert Johnson naja was specifically stated by Robert as having Montezuma Royston.
It is all very interesting, because in one video they talked about the Fox Turquoise, and how an earlier owner gave different names to the different colors, and then the next day I watched the video where they talked about the Royston mining district. So it was really helpful to have @SouthWestGEM jump in with his knowledge. It’s so fun to see where some of these threads lead
I’m also curious, because it seems like through this conversation we’ve learned that some names of turquoise are specific mining sites, but we’ve also had a discussion in other threads that some names seem to be simply descriptive for sale, such as Ceremonial Kingman. Apparently the different names that they mentioned for the Fox Turquoise were like that. I wonder if your Tia Maria is either simply descriptive, or a specific mine claim or dig site somewhere.
I would really love to visit Tonopah or Kingman someday!
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Oh yeah, the good ol’ Ceremonial Kingman😄. Good point!
Since you love old Rt 66 lodging’s, you’d love the Mizpah Hotel, So much historic character! The Otteson’s used to have a turquoise jewelry store in the Hotel, but like so many a things, it was no longer operating several years ago when we stayed there.
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I do love historic lodging, and that one looks great. Hopefully someday I’ll get out there! About the only time I’ve spent in NV was a few days for a conference in Vegas, and I didn’t have a car. So it’s time I visit your state! But then the Four Corners keeps calling me back A couple years before he passed my brother stayed about a week in the area of Great Basin National Park (he and I used to challenge each other a bit on who could outdo each other on parks). He said it was beautiful.
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@Bmpdvm, I have a little more free time today so I was going through some of the Twin Rocks videos. I thought you would be interested in this one, because they talk about discussing making it with Ray Lovato.
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Thanks for sharing @Ziacat. That certainly is an exceptional necklace; it’s hard to imagine the work involved making those small beads. I’m sure he had some breakage, but as Barry said, the higher quality and harder the turquoise, the less loss. I hope to find out how Ray is doing at Market, but the fact that he wasn’t up to coming to market the past several years doesn’t sound good. It’s hard seeing these amazing artist deteriorate and lose their abilities.
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