I have been blessed with a real eye for stone so when I was offered rough stone to pick I usually ended up with the best in that batch. When I used this stone I made it a point to stash the best, always used very good stone just stashed the best. My knowledge of turquoise is the main reason that I ended up in China in 1987.

To answer your question about the future and people being able to identify stone form the various mines. Unless someone has seen a large variety of material from each different mine from low quality to the highest grade, it would be almost impossible to say without a doubt this is from mine A and not mine B. There will be people that know some mines but as time passes most turquoise identification will be a somewhat uneducated guess.

One thing that my stashing has done for Suzi and I is it gave us a pretty good retirement stash.
I have had a saying for years “better rocks than stocks” this has proven to be true as the value of quality turquoise has escalated so much in the past five years it amazes me. This is one of the reasons I am now cutting the highest grade and the rarest. I was told by a good friend that Indian Mountain is priceless at this time he said that it was more sought after Bisbee which has always been one of the top turquoise on the market.

Regarding your personal turquoise, I would guess most of it is real turquoise in the mid range. Most jewelry you see does not have gem turquoise in it.

I have posted two new images, one is of a bracelet I made in the mid nineties, this piece walked into our room at Tucson last year and it was for sale, I think I got it for about what it originally sold for, for sure the person had no clue as to what they had. This bracelet is a pretty good catalog of the high grade Chinese turquoise we were buying from 1987 to 1989. The other is an image of one of my most treasured Chinese turquoise cabochons.

All my best ...... Danny

The Image search, with all sorts of intriguing links to follow:

https://www.google.com/search?q=gemological+institute+turquoise+identification&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=xTJRVN3bI5axogS03YC4BQ&ved=0CEcQsAQ

GIA report on untreated turquoise with human fingerprints:
http://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/FA13-LN-fingerprint-pattern-turquoise

A flyover of common gem treatments - includes some interesting coral photos as well
http://www.gia.edu/gem-treatment

And don't miss the link to his Pinterest page:

http://www.pinterest.com/russnobbs/turquoise-imitations/

Plus, you can buy beads from them (nuggets, not nearly as sweet as Danny's carved beads) - just to give some idea of market prices.

http://nevadagem.com/pages/categorypages/turqbeads.html

Hope its not another of my silly questions. It was not answered last time.

I am posting a picture of my turquoise beads with bubbles on them. The beads are soaking in tap water. Would anyone know why this happens? Is it due to the dye, paraffin or other treatment? The beads are not expensive and from China so I guess they are not genuine. But I can't find any information on turquoise with bubbles and wonder if it happens to any other collectors turquoise ?

Hope lopacki or other turquoise collectors can comment.

Thank you so much for looking.

Sallie

Thank you for posting these images.

All my best ......... Danny