What is natural turquoise and why does it matter?

Natural is a term used to catagorize turquoise. In this context it means the stone was mined, cut and polished with no other alteration to the stone at all. This means that anything else done to the stone, its been oiled, its been stabilized, its been Zachary treated ect is not natural and should not be sold as natural. There are some grey areas that I will explain.

The use of certain polishing compounds can be considered suspect and the subject of scrutiny when buying some highend stones. An example of this would be using a red buffing compound when polishing a stone from the Candeleria mine. The problem with this is that the red polish potentially gives the appearance of a natural red matrix, which is much more desirable and expensive than the same stone with a different color matrix. Small things like this can make a large difference in carat price and some unscrupulous people exploit little hacks like this to great effect.

Fill is another grey area and should be disclosed and often is not. What is this you may ask. Filling is the process of using epoxy mixed with host rock or powered grout to (fill natural holes) in turquoise. It is not uncommon for the host rock that turquoise forms in to be softer than the turquoise itself. When cutting a stone it is not unusual for the host rock to break or disolve even if you have very highgrade turquoise. This can often leave an ugly hole in the matrix. People remedy this by “filling” the hole. The grey area of this is that while you are not techanically altering the turquoise, you are altering the appearance of the matrix of the stone. Even the color of the matrix from some mines is much more desirable than others. Lets take our example that I used above of the Candeleria mine. The formation of highgrade turquoise is extremely rare. For highgrade to form with a natural bright red say spiderweb matrix adds exponetially to the rarity and value of the stone. When you add in that the material came from a known mine whith good provenance in the U.S.A. the value is even more. There are cases where the fill is so good that a person cannot tell it has been done without a loupe. The general rule of honor is that if a seller knows the stone has been filled, they are obligated to disclose that fact to the person buying the cabochon.

Speaking of honor, the whole concept of declaring a turquoise stone (natural) has historically been based on an honor system. Good sellers are honest and you can trust them to sell you stones that are what they say they are. Obviously this is important because as soon as you take possesion of a stone you are responsible for disclosing accurately what it is to your customer. If your wrong, it makes you look bad to your customer.

These days things are alot trickier buying turquoise online. Is the color accurate on your monitor, is it really genuine, is the stone natural, is the stone really from that mine ect. Honestly its a mine field out there, even for seasoned veterians. Your best defence is buy from honest sellers and arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can.

If you see natural color and stabilized in the same description….. exercise caution!

One of the big advantages of buying from turquoisedeluxe.com is that you can rest assured you are getting what you paid for. We source our stones directly from our mines and other miners. Our stones and rough have excellent provenance. We believe in full disclosure. If a stone is filled, stabilized, enhanced or otherwise altered we will tell you to the best of our knowledge. We are honest sellers looking for awesome buyers. Come check us out at turquoisedeluxe.com.