Sharing this group of turquoise I recently bought at auction where seller had no info. Much is untreated and many pieces seem to have some sort of quartz present. Colors range from chalky aqua to bright robin blue to teal / green.
It doesn’t look like most Chinese turquoise I’m familiar with but I just don’t know anymore. I’ve seen Chinese that mimics many turquoise varieties I’ve personally handled. A couple of these pieces look more like variscite to me. I wonder if the group was all from the same mine. Who knows!
I bought the lot inexpensively for a display and also want to make sure there isn’t anything great in here that I’m missing.
Congrats on the score, some nice looking stuff in there. To me it looks like turquoise. As for origins i don’t have a clue and agree that Chinese turquoise comes in an incredibly wide range of colors and appearances. If i were you i would closely inspect the stones to see if more of them have writing (name of the mine?) on them, like the one in the photo below.
Good catch- I totally missed that ! Only thing else I can make out is a distinct “O”. Ala_o__. I’m stumped. The letter after the “a” might be an “N” or “M” but it is so smudged. Definitely not Alacran. I can’t seem to get a good photo.
Must be Alamo mine then!
I googled Alamoa turquoise mine and google said do you mean Alamo mine? ((:
I’m sure the 3rd letter is an m.
Can’t make out the last letter, which seems detached from the word before it. Perhaps a crooked n for natural?
I was also thinking it looks like “alamo,” but couldn’t find anything on it (I googled Alamo turquoise and got nada). Where is it?
Edit: I just Googled and saw one thing that said it’s in Sonora, Mexico, but then another article said there isn’t any such place, and it’s probably being confused with Cerillos (that doesn’t make any sense since those 2 words aren’t similar) or the Limestone mine where the stone for the Alamo came from. I can’t find anything much about it.
I dislike ai, but am lazy today so i’ll share what i am getting from google:
"Alamo Mine (Sonora, Mexico)
Location: Situated at Campitos Mountain, just outside of Cananea, Sonora, Mexico.
Characteristics: Known for producing vibrant turquoise ranging from aqua blue to lime green, often featuring a golden to brown matrix.
Form: Typically found in clay deposits as nuggets, rather than in traditional veins."
It seems that it is a small, obscure turquoise mine, a byproduct from a larger gold & silver mining district.
I guess i should add that ultimately all of this isn’t solid evidence of where the material was mined (and it could be a batch of mixed mines as well).
