Native American Indian Jewelry: How to Identify Genuine Bisbee Turquoise in Native American Jewelry

Native American jewelry expert Dr. Mark Sublette of Medicine Man Gallery with 25 years experience in the Indian art business gives tips on how to identify genuine early turquoise in Navajo jewelry. Excellent tutorial for beginning to advanced collectors on the characteristics one looks for when buying Native American old pawn jewelry with turquoise.

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Native American Indian Jewelry: How to Identify Genuine Bisbee Turquoise in Native American Jewelry

Hi, today I want to talk to you about turquoise, and the turquoise (this isn’t it), but I want to talk to you about Bisbee. Genuine natural turquoise (like this) can be very valuable, and pieces like Bisbee turquoise can really have great value. In fact, Bisbee has really gone up in value in the last (just) few years.

Bisbee was a mine that really didn't even develop until 1951. It was Phelps Dodge who opened a huge mine pit, and out of that open mine, there was one specific pit, called the lavender pit, that when they got down and were starting to do deep mining, they found this turquoise.

Now, the turquoise to them actually had very little value because they were interested in the gold and silver and copper and those types of things. So, what they would do is (the aftermath) things that they would just dig up and throw away. The big pit was actually (what) had the turquoise.

Now, the company didn't want the turquoise taken out because of liability issues, but somehow the people who worked there would occasionally take their lunchboxes and fill them up with the turquoise, and that happened for years and years and years – from 1951 until the mine really kind of quit working in the mid 60s, this was taken out. I think it was just kind of general practice; people realized that they're going to take it out, and they didn't really care because it wasn't of interest to them, and of course, at that time it didn't bring that kind of money.

So, it wasn’t until 1972, a guy named William Matthews actually got a lease from Phelps Dodge, and then he was allowed to go in and really excavate the Bisbee turquoise, and about 2,000 pounds came out from that timeframe. So, when you're thinking about Bisbee turquoise, think about from about 1950 on – those are the kind of pieces of jewelry that really will have Bisbee.

Now, genuine Bisbee turquoise can come in a lot of different colors. You can have it from very light blue all the way up to very dark blue. The examples I'm showing you now have great deep blue, and that's what you like to see with this brown chocolate chert, (and that matrix and the blue of the dark matrix) is really what brings it alive. And when you see that kind of Bisbee – that's quality Bisbee tuquoise. And it's a very dense stone, and that's the other thing that makes it highly desirable, is it's a dense stone – very beautiful, very identifiable.

So, when you're looking at Native American jewelry, and you think that it might be something like Bisbee, take a little time and do some research. Very few other stones look like Bisbee (other than Persian), and Persian can also have a dark chert to it, but it's a little different. You need to look underneath a magnifying glass or a loop, and you can maybe see the differences. Also, Persian has a high dome to it; it's a little different sensibility than Bisbee turquoise.

The Persian is also a good stone. So, when you're thinking about turquoise, when you're thinking about Native American jewelry, try to identify what you can, and if it's genuine Bisbee, you've got a great find.