Turquoise Jewelry

Blue-green stabilized turquoise in combination with sterling silver and other materials.

Turquoise has played a significant role in ancient art and jewelry in the Middle East as show in Persian and Egyptian artifacts. Turquoise artifacts can also be found in China and in the pre-Columbian Americas, most notably the ancient Aztec culture.

More recently, turquoise is often associated with the distinctive jewelry of Southwestern Native Americans.

The color and quality of turquoise varies considerably. We use turquoise that has been stabilized and is a blue-green color.- (see individual product pages for a more accurate color description of each item.)

Purchasing turquoise can be a bit confusing. The prices vary greatly. This is due in part the by the cost of different grades of turquoise. Below is a brief description of the different grades of turquoise on the market today.

Natural turquoise: This is considered the highest quality available. This quality of stone is hard enough, and beautiful enough, to be cut and polished 'as is' and set in jewelry. The price of the jewelry should reflect the cost of the turquoise. Beware of any jewelry claiming to be 'natural turquoise' that is not 4-5 times the cost of the above ankle bracelet. A very small amount of turquoise sold today is 'natural'.

Stabilized: Turquoise tends to be soft and pourous. When soft, but otherwise beautiful turquoise is mined, an epoxy resin is infused into the stone to give it the hardness needed for use in jewelry. This is the second best quality gemstone and is suitable for jewelry making. (Unless otherwise noted, we use stabilized turquoise is used in the jewelry on this site.)

Treated and chalk turquoise: At times the stone treated by both stabilizing and dying to enhance the color. Chalk turquoise starts as a powder and is compressed into blocks and dyed.