A Photo a Week Challenge: Jewel Colors
It’s hard to find jewel colors in nature in this part of the country, unless you count flowers or fabric … or maybe church windows. Otherwise, most of the jewel colors you will find are actual jewelry. This is my turquoise collection. I had more, but I wasn’t wearing it much, so I gave some of it away. Jewelry needs to be worn. Ask anyone.
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Categories: #gallery, #Photography, Photo A Week Challenge
PLAYTIME 
NATURE AT WORK 
SPA DAY FOR THE DUKE 
BRIGHT CHRISTMAS LIGHTS 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
My bestie would love your jewels 🙂
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Turquoise is a wonderful stone. I got most of this stuff — over a period of 30 years — on the Internet except for a couple of trips to Arizona. If you keep you eyes open, sometimes you can get a bargain. But patience is the key. I didn’t collect this in a day or two. I bought things, sold things, traded up. Sold something else to buy something new. When you don’t have money, you have to be clever 💖
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I also help scour op-shops (your charity shops) for bargains as well as car boot markets and other second hand shops. Yes when you don’t have the money, you do become resourceful 🙂
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I started a business basically from garage sales and the Salvation Army second-hand shops. It lasted three years until the 2008 market collapse and I made a modest living from it at a time when we were so poor we were eating from the food bank. If you know what you are looking for and what it’s worth, you can do alright.
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Sure can. Sometimes it’s hard to part with treasures found
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Some things I kept. Or kept for a while, anyway. But one of my goals was to sell off a lot of stuff we had collected over two life times. I don’t know if I got rid of much. I think maybe we just upgraded to better stuff.
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Lovely pieces. I got lucky one time when someone brought in a broken necklace to a jeweler to fix but never came back to check on it. She sold the unfixed pieces to me for next to nothing, I still haven’t done anything with it.
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Good turquoise stones are worth using well. They are also highly saleable. Smiths use old stones as often as they can get them. Do you know what mine the stones are from?
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No, she told me nothing about them. I will dig them out one day and see if there are any markings. Will post a photo of the pieces.
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Stones don’t have markings. You need to look this stuff up online and see what they look like compared with other stones. They aren’t diamonds. Old stones may have been mined a long time ago — or very recently. You can tell a lot by the silver, whether it’s handmade, Native, or ?? There won’t be any markings, except maybe (possibly) a signature on the silver, if it is Native made and relatively recent. Old Native made pieces are generally simpler in design and usually NOT signed. The older pieces are often very heavy, too … heavy silver. Big stones … and the stones are closer to natural. Less machined. I have mostly new pieces or newer pieces, though I had some really wonderful older stuff. But my hands and wrists are small and the big pieces didn’t fit me well. Eventually, I sold them and kept stuff that I can wear. I also don’t wear jewelry except for earrings and rings now. Unless I’m going out on the town … kind of rare these days.
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That is what I meant, markings on the silver and then look up the company, maybe from there find out more on what stones they may have used. I doubt they are native or very old. I have many books on gemstone identification and will have a look. Now you have my curiosity perked. I will be busy tomorrow and they are packed away with all of my old jewelry making bins. I will try to dig them out on Sunday.
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Don’t count on markings. Silver work is rarely made by large companies. The good stuff is Native made. There’s a lot of Chinese imitations of Native jewelry, too. They will copy anything, including their own stuff and they are very good at it. You MIGHT find a marking to tell you that it is silver, but it’s old, there won’t even be a silver mark. I have a lot of silver — very little has any markings other than the designs. If you take a couple of good, clear pictures and send them to me, I might be able to help you figure out if it’s the real deal or not. It takes a while to learn about this stuff, but it’s interesting. The more I learned, the more hooked I got. I really LOVE this jewelry.
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I will have a look for it today, our plans change. It was cheap and from a jewelry store, so I doubt it is anything special or she wouldn’t have sold it to me. But, who knows? Back when I made jewelry I would buy broken things too and then make something new from it. I have bins of beads and broken crap now, and haven’t made a thing in ages! My eyes are going on me and it is just not as fun anymore when I have to switch from glasses to a magnifier, trying to thread things, tie knots! Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
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I gave up beading for the same reason. You never know with turquoise. I got an amazing ring that the seller was sure was plastic, but it was a beautiful green turquoise from Neveda. She didn’t know turquoise could be green.
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I had some Turquoise and I eventually gave it away to a granddaughter for a birthday. It was exquisite but suited her more. 🙂
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I gave a lot of stuff away — sold some, re-homed other stuff — because I wasn’t wearing it anymore. I probably should have sold more of it, but I really LIKE giving things to people.
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I do too. I give away most of what I have hopefully to those that will appreciate it’s uniqueness and quality not to mention expense but I try to marry items with the person so…
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Yup. Me too.
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beautiful collection. I love turquoise colour.
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Me too. I also love it in its various shades of green.
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What lovely colours, Marilyn.
Leslie
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They don’t call it “sky stone” for nothing 🙂
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🙂
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Beautiful collection, Marilyn. Love your take on the theme. Thanks for joining the challenge!
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Nothing says “jewel tones” like jewels 😀 Thank you for having me!
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I absolutely love turquoise. You have some really beautiful pieces in there. It is something I have always wanted to work with more, but is a bit cost-prohibitive.
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You can get some very nice turquoise at reasonable prices from the Kingman mines in Arizona. They have an internet listing. You can order all different kind of beads, from the cheapest to the most expensive. For what you are doing, EVEN the most expensive won’t be that much because you are only using a bead at a time, so a dozen lovely beads will make 6 stunning pairs of earrings. Everything comes in different sizes, too. Smooth or natural in shape. Some are composites, but for earrings, it won’t matter. They also sell other jewelry making stuff. Kingman’s turquoise — I think they may be the ONLY remaining “live” turquoise mine in the U.S. today — their stones are very bright blue with almost no veining.
When we were beading, we found a number of places that sold beads of all kinds, semi-precious stones. I totally fell in love with stones. For me, it was never about the silver — always about the stones. Anyway, there is turquoise everywhere and depending on what other elements are in the mine, the stones can be any color from almost white, to bright yellow, glowing green, to any version of blue — with and without veins. I spent a lot of time just reading about the stones until I had a pretty good handle on what I was looking for — before I spent any money. It’s fascinating stuff.
Kingman turquoise from Kingman Arizona – Durango Silver Company
https://www.durangosilver.com/kingmanturquoise.htm
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