RARE Dry Creek Turquoise (NV) Small Focal Pendant Bead 15x20mm

WOW! This is an amazing find!

Dry Creek Turquoise

Dry Creek Turquoise comes from a small Turquoise mine outside of Austin, Nevada in Lander County. This mine was previously known for its sky blue to medium blue webbed turquoise. Dry Creek Turquoise has gained much popularity over the years with its creamy pale blue coloring and golden to cocoa brown matrix. This color of Turquoise was rarely used in Turquoise Jewelry before the late 1990s. The color is a pastel blue much like the color of Larimar, only high grade Dry Creek Turquoise has beautiful light brown, golden yellow or orange webbed matrix. Dry Creek Turquoise is also reffered to as "Sacred Buffalo" Turquoise which is wrong and never called "White Buffalo" which has a completely different look and comes ONLY from Tonopah, Nevada USA.

The Dry Creek Turquoise mine in Nevada was first discovered during the early 1990's by Nevada's Shoshone Native American tribe. The Shoshone are not typically jewelry makers and had privately leased the mining rights on a limited basis or used the stone as trade. Dry Creek had been mined for a number of years producing a creamy blue stone often with a golden or cocoa brown matrix but can have extreme variations depending on the areas mined. The hardness of the Turquoise also varied. The best Dry Creek Turquoise is hard and takes a great shine.

he pale blue Dry Creek Turquoise was first re-discovered (with interest) in the Dry Creek Turquoise Mine mine near Austin, Nevada in 1993. When the material was first found there was a white material and a pale blue material, they weren't actually sure what it was. It was further explored in 1999 by the current owners. They had both materials lab tested and after they were assayed and their suspicions were confirmed: the pale blue material was, in fact, Turquoise and this Dry Creek Turquoise was harder than they expected.. This is not to be confused with the White material they found that turned out to be Aluminite. It took a while to get the now famous Dry Creek Turquoisemade into jewelry as the traditional jewelers did not favor its pale color, however once it took off it became popular fast.

Dry Creek Turquoise is not treated or color enhanced and is revered for its light whitish - blue Turquoise color. Most Turquoise this light of a blue is chaulk and is too soft to cut. That is one of the main reasons that Dry Creek Turquoise is soo valuable. It seems these days that wilder the color of Turquoise the more popular it is. Most high grade Dry Creek Turquoise is a 6-7 on the hardness scale... average Turquoise is a 4-5 on the mohs scale.