A quick search of Google Images yields this representative photo of sea urchin spines, at least one type that is commonly sold as beads.
I missed my chance to put the photo here, so please click the link.
Birdie, Thanks for the search! I saw those too and these to me dont look like sea urchin quills. They feel like dyed balsa or teke- I wondered if all those patterns on sea urchins are natural because these have no such patterns. Its amazing the mystery these beads and jewelry be and the journeys that it takes you on. Its like a scientific and cultural study in one. You have to REALLY be good to recognize fakes. there must be a billion dollar industry in people passing off fakes (Duh.) I do not plan on people one of them! That is why I have come here to learn! Thank u so much for your help. All of you.
Kig's Manassa is a good possibility. It's one of my favorite turquoises. I used to buy quite a bit of jewelry set with it from various members of the King family.
There are several other mines that have similar to what I see in the picture. Over the years many mines have produced a variety of colors, not just the typical stone.
I've had blue gem and even turquoise mountain stone in the green with yellow-brown matrix. The matrix in your beads is a little browner or darker brown than typical Kimg's Manassa. If these beards are old and well worn the green color may have originally been blue!
Sun West has good pictures of various stone examples. Their example picture of blue gem includes some green stone: http://www.silversunalbuquerque.com/m-blue_gem.htm
Sky Stone trading used to have good pictures but I don't find them today: http://www.skystonetrading.com/turquoise-mines-and-map/pos/v/chapter/1
Fascinating. I'm inclined to go with Kind Manassa, these are at least 40 years old (I posted this already) have no idea where it went.
Russ thanks for the guidance- I think what's clear is the green and brown come from either the Southest or Mexico- something I never ever would have known. (Didnt the Manassa mine also begin in Mexico? I thought i'd read that. It turns out he was mining for gold and all he got was abunch of lousy turquoise. ;) It took him a while to figure out what he had. Talk about serendipity. Isnt that the way life always turns out to be? Imagine if he had just walked away from the whole mine? You really have to wonder what separates a Kind Manassa from just any other miner who I'm sure hit this mine a dozen times before.
I dont know. Not comfortable saying that's what they are for sure- yet.
but frankly the way they are curved, they look like coconut shells to me. Are there saw marks? I can't really tell, the photos are not good enough, but I don't see any shapes typical of animal origin. Dyed wood or coconut shell is my guess until I see more.
Rain today in southern California.... always a miracle, so rare, so needed.
Sorry about the photo sizes all, I seem to be at war with this forum- its hard to judge 169 k, I guess that comes with practice.
As for the Turquoise., I thought I had read that someone mentioned it looked like Jasper. That post is gone now or it is somewhere else but I have to ask: Is there any chance this could be Jasper? And isn't Jasper (sorry) just another word for "junk"? I'm sorry but I've seen a lot of so-called "jasper" pieces and to me they just look like a catch all for we dont know what this is so we'll just call it "jasper" because its a composite of a whole lot of junk we cant identify.
If I am wrong please forgive me! And if you're a jasper lover please dont be insulted!! But do correct me. ;) Because some of it can come out looking really quite nice But I'd hate to confuse Turquoise with jasper and have never seen anything in Jasper that I would confuse with this. (A lot of the pieces from this estate do contain jasper and I really have to wonder what's up.)
Anyway, sorry about the small pics. I'm working on that.
Annie
