Newbie here and Happy Holidays. Have a question which i ask with respect. I see posts with turquoise mine IDs. My understanding from decades of collecting( more like half a century) is that the only way to truly identify turquoise is to be there when it was pulled out (if not the miner). Even attribution by the smith who worked the stone is hearsay. One mine can gave multiple veins that look nothing like each other and very similar veins can come out off totally unrelated mines.
The only piece I own that I would attribute to a specific mine is a Cerrillos buckle and legally that would be hearsay too but i know who made it, it’s been identified his family members and I know the silversmith mined Cerrillos for himself. (And it’s screamingly green lol).
So, please share and explain to me why I’m wrong. I keep thinking about the MANY Landers I’ve been offered recently from various people LOL.
I don’t believe you are completely wrong, probably mostly right. However, I have pieces that the artist I bought them from was sure which mine (and wrote it down), so I would call that legit. I have also had traders (at very legitimate stores/trading posts) who were extremely knowledgeable tell me where they thought a stone was from, and it makes me happy to know where my turquoise possibly came from.
For example, I had a very dark navy colored stone with green, pyrite, and brown in it, that has been verified as from Nevada. Jason was able to give great insight on where the stone MIGHT be from. Of course I know that’s not 100%, but it’s very interesting.
I think on here we like to look, and we try to figure out, but we know that we can’t sell something and attribute it to a mine without verification (and I for one don’t sell my jewelry, so it’s more for my own satisfaction). But a lot of us here that love turquoise like to try to learn. And it’s fun! But I hope Jason at Perry Null (I believe he is the moderator of the site) will chime in and let you know his opinion.
Welcome to the site, and I believe you will learn a lot here. I have done a lot of collecting and learning myself for a very long time, and I’m still learning much here.
BTW, I hear you on people thinking (hoping?) stones are rare stones. In the end, it almost always seems like it’s Kingman! LOL
Welcome to the site. I believe that most of us here agree with you. Unless you have a direct provenance from the miner, and this turquoise is sold directly to the artists or individuals who have work commissioned with everything well documented, then the best you can hope for is an educated guess.
So many mines produce many variations and resemble each other so much that it is difficult. Then you add in the Persian, Egyptian and Chinese turquoise that is in this country and closely resembles some of our mines…yes it’s hard. And without the provenance you can’t say definitively say that it’s this or that mine.
However, when reading sales listings remember the old adage “buyer beware “. Things are often misrepresented. And yes it drives me crazy!
I don’t think you are going to get many folks that disagree with your assessment. I have always and always will operate on one premise…Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! The day I have to get a lawyer because of Turquoise will be the day I am done! I prefer to live in a different world. Education, trust and verify if possible, and at the end of the decision…does it sing to me.
@reader What you say is what the books say. What isn’t in the books is all the deep connoisseurship that is learned by experience and memory, transmitted person to person if at all. If you’re lucky enough to spend tons of time with stones and you’re built in a way where you learn with all of your senses and not just the mental data bank, you can pretty reliably recognize specific turquoise.
By the way I absolutely do trust the stone ID’s of quality jewelry makers. Many if not most have serious stashes they’ve developed and kept for years, and they know and care about what they have–every bit as seriously as high-end baseball card collectors.
Thanks all for your time and i do agree with the overall responses but will stay pretty firm that regardless of one’s expertise and experience it’s wrong to attribute unsigned/undocumented turquoise to a specific mine.
And I think you can rest assured that no one on this site is officially assigning turquoise to specific mines. I believe we all love turquoise and Native American jewelry, are curious and want to know more. I for one am not planning to do anything shady with any of the information people share with me on their opinion of where possibly any turquoise came from. It’s just enjoyable to discuss it with like-minded people. I hope you share and enjoy also!
I agree with you that you should have documentation to officially say something is something; we just disagree slightly on who that documentation could come from, or at least how many steps it could be removed from the actual person that mined it. After all, we all believe that Beethoven wrote Moonlight Sonata, and no one alive today actually saw him do it. But documentation from reliable sources through the years tells us it’s so.
Just to give you an idea how it works most of the time with turquoise buying. Usually the cutter is not the miner, you do have certain miners that also do the cutting but this is not common. So the cutter/seller will know the mine owner or purchase rough turquoise at shows like the Tucson gem show. Often they will have several different mines that they have purchased from. After they cut the stone they go on the road and sell to supply shops and galleries. They will pull out a tray and say this is Kingman Turquoise and you pick through the stones and take the ones you want. Then they pull out another tray and say this is Golden Hill Turquoise and you continue this process until you have what you want or they have showed you all the turquoise. I have been part of this process for the last 20+ years and imagine it went the same way long before I came along. Never has any documentation ever been presented to officially state where the turquoise came from. If documentation does exist it would come from a shop when a customer wants some type of authentication. Can mistakes be made, absolutely. Do I believe that you can properly identify a piece of turquoise from the look, absolutely. Are some pieces of turquoise identifications a best guess, absolutely. When does it matter, when you are buying some average piece and the seller tells you it is Lander Blue and instead of a $90 piece it is a $1000 piece.
I’m with @Christibo. It’s not an exact science and you can’t let too much ride on knowing exactly what the stone is. If you like it, that’s the biggest component.
That said, developing a good general working knowledge of stones and this style of craft is necessary to being an informed buyer (especially since many sellers don’t know what they have) enough to distinguish a fake and determine a good quality stone from a bad one, but individuality and personality of these stones seems to lend itself to building a piece of jewelry around it enough such that “it was pretty but I don’t know much about it” is part of its magic (if that makes sense).
I only state variety of Turquoise if it was purchased from a reputable dealer. I have lots of turquoise beads and rough stones that I purchased in the 1980’s from a reputable supply shop.
Or, directly from the person who made the item.
Sometimes I say that the Turquoise is “attributed” to such and such mine.
Over the years, I have learned how to potentially ID a variety of Turquoise.
Now, there is a lot of imported Turquoise on the market, which often makes a positive ID tough.
There are also many new mines popping up with some beautiful Turquoise.
Yes, it is fun. Every piece has a story. I went to an estate sale recently, no turquoise, but the woman had written a little note she enclosed with each piece of jewelry some of it’s history. I am sure she intended it for her family. Notes about who gave it to her, when and/or where it came from.
% that the turquoise must talk to me. Some pieces scream louder than others but I buy what talks to me.