Read on for some great misleading turquoise information! But seriously, a couple of recent online discussions involving my boss, Rings & Things owner Russ Nobbs, tackle this ongoing problem.  Rather than recap the whole conversation, can I sketch the important points?

Misleading gemstone information: Turquoise

“Chalk turquoise” can be real: In the picture below, everything is genuine turquoise…and it’s what’s often called “chalk turquoise” by miners and processors.  It’s the soft, very light-blue real turquoise that has to be stabilized before you can use it in jewelry.  (The blue nuggets around the big “rough” piece have been stabilized in plastic resin.  In a few cases the resin did not penetrate to the center of the nugget causing the paler center in the cracked open nuggets.)

Real turquoise

“Chalk turquoise” is often actually dyed magnesite–a completely different stone.  It’s not “a form of turquoise without copper,” as some vendors falsely say.  To be turquoise a stone must contain copper.  Dyed magnesite is an imitation turquoise.  The black “matrix” is black dye (sometimes simply black shoe polish) tumbled into the crevices of the irregular nuggets.  Here is a shot of some of the colors of dyed magnesite.

Dyed magnesite

Most “Tibetan” turquoise originates in China, as far as we can tell.  Chinese turquoise comes in many different qualities and colors – some is used natural but most is now stabilized with resin.

“Block turquoise” is the plastic imitation stuff that’s sometimes referred to as reconstituted or reconstructed turquoise.  It’s NOT ground-up anything!  The picture below shows blocks of man-made imitation turquoise seen in a supply shop in Bangkok in 2005.  Most of this “block” turquoise was made in the US.  Imitation “block” stone is made to look like many different stones including lapis, malachite, rhodonite, sugilite and dyed coral.  (And even “chalk turquoise”!) 

Plastic: "block" turquoise

Vendors’ inaccurate (although descriptive) names are a problem for the bead industry, when they’re taken verbatim as the correct name for a mineral.  At Rings & Things we made this mistake recently, when we added a green bead with brown markings as the “Afghanistan jade” that the seller called it.  It was not the same as the serpentine often called “Afghan jade”, but it was very attractive and reasonably priced.  On closer inspection we found it had a green coating that you could scrape off…the upshot was that these beads turned out to be more like calcite (a.k.a.  “Mexican onyx”)!

With gemstones, you have to be skeptical. Rings & Things insists on this in the gemstone descriptions you see in our online store, our catalogs, and our reference work the “Gemstone Beads Index“.  If you’re paying money for gemstones, we think you need to know whether they’re genuine or faux, treated or stabilized, and hopefully you should be able to identify exactly what stone they are.

What else do you want to know about turquoise–or other gemstones?  Ask Russ!  I promise I’ll pass along all comments you make on this blog post.

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You asked (in response to yesterday’s R&T News Flash):

“OK, this is a totally dumb question, but when you have solid wood circles that are in the chain, there’s no way to ‘open’ the wood chain in order to adjust the number of links you want, is there, short of breaking one of the links?”

If you can cut wood chain, you can make this!

Our response:

“Hi, your question is definitely NOT dumb — in fact several people in our warehouse have asked the same thing!

The short answer is: just like with soldered chain, you’ll need to cut through a link to shorten the chain or use small sections. You’ll have to sacrifice cut links, unless you saw through them carefully.

One of our purchasers says, ‘I have a the link we broke in order to shorten the chain. It broke on the glue line and could maybe be glued back together. These are not solid links — at least not all of them (every other one?). The chain would be sooooo expensive if solid! So, the glued ones have a barely visible line.’

Co-owner Russ adds: ‘So far, most people using these styles of chain use the whole length. You could use a fine jeweler’s saw and cut open a link. It should be possible to glue the link together with wood glue however it might snap as you try to compress the cut ends together.  It would be safer to glue it together with a thin slice of veneer into the gap created by the saw kerf. We’ve not tried this yet, and I’m not going to recommend it, but it should be possible. In other words, you are on your own if you try it. ”

I hope this helps! 

Let us know if you find a method that works well for you!

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Spend enough time around beads, and you’ll hear people tossing the phrase ‘trade beads’ around.

What would you trade to have these...?

But what are trade beads (or ‘tradebeads’)?  Rings & Things often gets asked this question.  I got our bead-loving founder, Russ Nobbs, to talk a little about this…

Q:  What are trade beads?

Russ:  Generally the term ‘trade bead’ refers to the kinds of beads collected and sold in Africa. In the public perception this includes

• European-made glass beads
• Indian-made carnelian and agate beads
• African-made stone, metal and powdered-glass beads
• and, more recently, contemporary glass beads from India and China.

So, it’s a catch-all name for what could be called “African beads just because they are found today in African sources.”

Q:  What do trade beads have to do with trading?

Russ:  When asked if trade beads were really traded, well-known bead researcher Jamey Allen said, “My definition merely says that ‘trade’ beads are ‘beads that were made for exchange purposes, not for use purposes.’  Not all old beads are ‘trade’ beads.”

Very few of the ‘trade beads’ on the market today are truly ‘trade’ beads, in that they were made to sell as commodities.  Beads made for the slave and gold trade are from an earlier era than most of what are called “trade beads” on sale today.

Q:  What are some major kinds of trade beads that people might enjoy checking out?

Russ:  At Rings & Things we tend to describe this category as “African and Trade Beads.” This includes Indian stone and European glass beads made in the 18th, 19th and early 20th century. It also includes the powder-glass beads made currently in Ghana and lost-wax cast metal beads from Ghana and Ivory Coast. These were made in the last century and production continues today.

Thanks to Russ for sharing some thoughts about this.  Have another question for our resident bead expert?    Ask here!

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