Turquoise

[Dharma]

Hello all,

I just wanted to give everyone who uses turquoise a heads up. The Sleeping Beauty turquoise mine is shutting down and this variety of turquoise is getting harder and harder to come by. What's coming out raw is pretty chalky and the bead strands and cabochons are going up in price a lot. It looks like Sleeping Beauty turquoise is going the way of Morenci and Bisbee turquoise. So, now is the time to buy it if you want it. If you have it, hold on to it. Sleeping Beauty is sky-blue so it has been very popular since the greenish turquoise fell in popularity. Kingman turquoise is still readily available and some of it is sky-blue, but ranges from that to various shades of green. It can tend to have a lot of matrix in it, whereas Sleeping Beauty usually doesn't. A lot of turquoise is coming out of China now, but it's actual region of origin is Tibet. That turquoise is good turquoise, but totally different in color and matrix from American. Royston, Turquoise Mountain, and and #8 turquoise is still readily available but much of that is a very pale pastel blue or pastel green. Some people like that, but some don't. Sleeping Beauty it definitely is not.

Turquoise looks pretty good on a quiver which is what I use it for. I don't know if anyone here uses it, but wanted to share this information with everyone just in case.

[lowell]

This post caught my eye because I want to try to inlay crushed or powdered turquoise into a cane I am making.

  Also my wife is "into" turquoise and has some Sleeping Beuaty  and others.  We made a trip to Santa Fe, Taos and area last year and she had a good time!!

  Thanks for info!!

[Lemos]

Could you recommend a supplier? I've only recently started playing with the inlay stuff and would like an opportunity to get some

[lowell]

I have only looked on ebay for crushed and powdered turquoise,  so I don't know of any other suppliers.

 I have a few turquoise beads I may try to crush fine enough for what I plan to inlay.

[Dharma]

You can order crushed turquoise, cabochons, and bead strands from Thunderbird Supply, 928-526-2439. It runs $10 a bag for a bag about 2"x3". It's sky blue. Thing about cabs is you have ovals, freeforms, and rounds, and some squares. They will always be fairly irregular in shape, even ovals, because they have to follow what the stone wants. When asking for cabochons, you have to just specify an average size because each one will be different. In general on cabochons, you will have long ovals, ovals, rounds, and freeforms. They average about .98 cents a carat for Sleeping Beauty. Turquoise is sold by carat weight. Smaller ovals and rounds will be true oval and true round, but those are usually in the 4mm to 6mm sizes. After that, they will be following the stone. Those ones will be backed. Sleeping Beauty is the only one you can really rely on being sky blue. Kingman can vary from sky blue to shades of green.