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A very small and erratically worked Nevada Turquoise mine in the greater Pilot Mountain area. We have only rarely had turquoise from Halley’s Comet. Supposedly the mine always produced more varicite than turquoise.

First mined before WWI, stuff Easter Blue is a Nevada mine in the greater Royston, Pilot Mountain, Tonopah area. (And yes, that is a very large area. But central Nevada has few landmarks that mean much to outsiders.) Generally described as a pale and very pretty blue –never of much commercial significance– we have nevertheless seen some relatively dark turquoise from the Easter Blue mine. But, if you like a pale –but relatively high quality– blue turquoise Easter Blue is the mine for you.

A minor turquoise mine in the greater Battle Mountain area of Nevada. At its best Dry Creek turquoise is exceptionally hard –a rare occurrence for a turquoise that is relatively pale in color. Never a major producing mine we have never had more that a few strands of Dry Creek at any time. Because of its exceptional hardness Dry Creek turquoise can take an excellent polish. At its best it can have a near glassy finish with a hint of dark matrix.

Roughly halfway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe “Cerillos” refers to a handful of small turquoise mines in the greater Cerillos area. Turquoise has been mined in the Cerillos area for at least seven hundred years. Cerillos rarely –if ever– displays the stunning blues of some of the better known Arizona and Nevada mines. Nevertheless it is a significant collectible because of the long history of human use of Cerillos turquoise.

Carico is one of the Nevada Turquoise mines famous for producing both natural blue Turquoise and natural green Turquoise. (While the blue Carico is a classic Turquoise blue, illness prescription occasionally interspersed with a faint greenish tinge, try cialis the green Turquoise ranges from a dark forest green to a bright shade that can only be described as “lizard”.) Green Carico turquoise is green because of iron deposits in the area. Both green and blue Carico is stunningly beautiful. The large quantities of dyed green material in the market since 2007 have probably been trying to mimic the vivid colors of natural green Carico.

One of many small turquoise mines in the Candelaria Hills of Nevada. Candelaria was infamous for its hardscrabble mine camps in the late 1870s and 1880s. It is an erratic producer of turquoise and the turquoise from Candelaria ranges from greenish –actually possibly Variscite which is also found in the area—to a color reminiscent of “Blue Gem.” Candelaria is particularly sought after by people who love matrix rich turquoise.

A small Nevada mine near Pilot Mountain, cialis  the Bonanza turquoise find was a bonus –prospectors were looking for metal. A relatively hard turquoise, tadalafil often described as having a brownish matrix and a greenish blue color. Nevertheless we have seen Bonanza produce pale blue and near matrix free material.

One of the many small “hat mines” in Lander County, and Nevada. We are big fans of Blue Spider. If you like spiderweb turquoise you will love Blue Spider. (The mix of blue and greenish blue and the patchwork spiderweb pattern common in larger pieces of Blue Spider often convince casual observers –who are not familiar with some of the smaller natural turquoise mines—that Blue Spider is a composite. It isn’t. We don’t sell composite.)

A high altitude turquoise mine in the Candelaria Hills of Nevada, physician the Blue Moon Turquoise mine has produced Turquoise ranging from very pale blue to incredibly dark, here  chalk to hard. This mine has been erratically productive for most of the twenty first century. Turquoise from the Blue Moon mine varies from a light to medium blue to a dark blue with a very dark –near black– matrix. Blue Moon has never reached the legendary status that some other erratically mined Nevada Turquoise sites have, partially because while Blue Moon has never been a volume producer it has produced a wide variety of colors and qualities.

As is the case with several of the more “generic” mine names there have actually been several “Blue Gem” turquoise mines. “Old” Blue Gem is now a lost mine due to the expansion of the copper mine production in the Battle Mountain area of Nevada. (Since the 1980s increased copper production in the Southwest has gobbled up –and possibly destroyed– many small turquoise operations.) Old Blue Gem was mined erratically for nearly fifty years in the middle of the twentieth century. Famed for its hardness and very attractive blue color Blue Gem was beloved by Southwestern jewelers through the 1970s. Any unfinished Blue Gem turquoise on the market today was mined at least thirty five years ago.