Tucson 2017 - Chrysoprase and Variscite

This year marks the 13th year I've been traveling to Tucson from Georgia. It's always a wild ride, several days of nonstop shopping, with zero to little downtime. I both look forward to and dread it, a little, every year. ;)

This year was no different, but I came home, as always, elated with my new finds. My love for colored gems remains undiminshed and I found some true lovelies to share with you.

Though it sells more slowly for me than other gems, I personally simply can't resist that magical greeny-green green of chrysoprase. The best chrysoprase comes from Australia, which is where all of these beauties are from. I love it best, as I love most gems, when it has not been entirely separated from its host rock (the brown you see in the photo). And when I find what I consider excellent examples, I will do whatever's necessary to make sure they come home with me. :)

This is how most people know chrysoprase, if they know it at all. Relatively rare on the gem market, it's not a very well-known gem and every time I offer a piece with chrysoprase, I get a lot of questions about it. These small cabochons, with their lovely and very even hues, will be accent stones for a series that will also use variscite (see photo below). I brought the larger cabs with me to the Tucson show in order to match some chrysoprase with them.

Here's an example of a finished design:

Variscite is also found in Australia (though a lot of good quality gem material comes from Utah), and the two gems are so complimentary that I love to put them together.

Here's another example of chrysoprase, that I made into jewelry designs last summer:

These actually stayed with me. I loved this softer, seafoam-y coloring with the host rock and the dark inclusions scattered throughout...I've never seen it in quite this shade, and I couldn't part with it. I had a few more stones like these, but all those designs have sold. Hopefully one of these days I'll find a few more...

I found many, many more deliciously colored goodies in Tucson this year, and I'll be sharing those soon. Until then....

Tucson 2017 - Turquoise (other)

Though my big love is the Royston / ribbon turquoise, there are certainly plenty of marvelous turquoises available on the gem market. This year, I stumbled on to some lovely examples of some of these "other" turquoises.

This year I found some Number 8 turquoise. The Number 8 mine, in Nevada, is one of the best known American turquoise mines. Its turquoise has long been prized for its spiderweb-y patterning (best seen in the top stone in the photo below).

Number 8 has been depleted of turquoise since the 1960s or 1970s, depending on which source(s) you believe. Either way, the only Number 8 turquoise on the market today seems to be from decreasing stores of the old rough that has been hoarded for many years. Sometimes, the owner of the rough sells it to pay the bills, sometimes old hoarders die and the family sells their stock...but whatever the circumstances, Number 8 is hard to come by and because demand is high and supply low, it's not inexpensive. I am thrilled to have added a few pieces of it to my own stash.

The other turquoise find from this year's trip is Campitos turquoise. Campitos is Mexican turquoise, mined since the 1980s in Sonora. It's sometimes compared to Sleeping Beauty because it will have bits of that soaring, pure-blue-sky color that defines Sleeping Beauty (known for its beautiful blue hue and almost no matrix in the stone).

Here's an example of Sleeping Beauty:

This a necklace made of Sleeping Beauty nuggets that I bought in the 1990s (for a song, compared to what I'd pay today, if I could even get my hands on any). I held on to the strand of nuggets for about ten years and then finally made them into a necklace. That mine is closed (as of 2012) and there's a limited supply of Sleeping Beauty on the market today.

But I digress. Back to the Campitos:

Lovely organically shaped cabochons with a lot of bold contrasts! These are so beautiful, with that lovely teal color just bursting against the brown host rock. I am eager to play with these!

Tucson 2017 - Turquoise (Royston)

A trip to the Tucson show would not be complete without sharing some turquoise finds. One of my favorite gemstones, turquoise is found around the world and has a range of color and patterning that boggles the mind. A good amount of high quality turquoise is found in the American Southwest: Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado.

One of the turquoises I love to buy is Royston / Ribbon turquoise, so named because it can look like "ribbons" of turquoise are winding through the host rock, forming interesting patterns. This turquoise comes from Nevada, and is often used in Native American jewelry designs.

My finds from this year:

Not a lot. And I don't have much on hand already, so my stash is on the small side. But when I shop the millions of gems on display in Tucson, one of my challenges is to find what I consider the absolute very *best* options. Some years, there's a lot available of what I deem "the best". And some years...there isn't. Natural gems are not an ever-renewing resource, so I pick and choose from whatever's available at any given moment. I'm quite satisfied with these beauties though; each one has splendid patterning and contrast.

And I did manage to find a few earring pairs:

Just a few. But all stellar. :)

And then these:

I've written about these gems before, here, and here, if you'd like to see more examples of this gorgeous gem. :)