Turquoise - Our Fascination with the Blue Gemstone

In the American Southwest, a silver turquoise pendant or some other piece of turquoise jewelry is a must for every woman's jewelry collection. In fact, that is probably true across the country! The turquoise may be a gem-quality natural and untreated piece from one of the notable mines in Arizona such as the Kingman, or Bisbee, or Morenci mines, of like most of us, may be a piece of stabilized turquoise from one of the southwestern states. Remember, stabilized turquoise is just as pretty as natural turquoise, and even gemologists and jewelers agree that stabilized specimens are the genuine article. As we look through the history of this blue gem, we see that this gemstone has been a fan favorite ever since it was first discovered nearly six thousand years ago. Egyptian kings and queens and priests thought that this blue stone was man's connection with the gods. So they decreed that the ownership of turquoise shall remain exclusively in the hands of people of high standing in their society. This raised the status of turquoise in peoples' minds but did little to spread its ownership in the masses. That spread happened many centuries later when turquoise was discovered in ancient Persia. The Persians decided that any one who could afford to buy the stone could own it. Turkey became an important center of trade in turquoise, and although it produced very little turquoise of its own, the country helped bring Egyptian and Persian turquoise to Europe. The Europeans mistakenly believed that the turquoise had been mined in Turkey. In honor of this, the French named the stone in honor of Turkey!

In recent decades, turquoise has continued to be a popular gemstone for fashion and fine jewelry. This demand for turquoise has had its positive and negative impacts. The positive impact has been that it has encouraged designers to innovate and create new and contemporary designs, and to experiment with new concepts such as combining pearls and turquoise in a white pearl necklace, or even coral and turquoise in earrings and bracelets. The negative impact of this increase in demand has been that turquoise like any other natural material is a finite resource, and because of excessive mining, several notable mines such as the Kingman mine, Cerillos, and Morenci have reported significantly reduced yields in recent years, indicating that these sources are drying up. The demand for turquoise probably reached its zenith in the 1970s. The 80s and 90s were a period of reduced demand. Today, it appears that popularity of turquoise is on the rise again and new explorations will have to be undertaken to meet world demand.