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Why “Turquoise Direct”? Our family works directly with the miners of Nevada and Arizona and directly with the finest Native American artists of the Southwest. Providing the highest quality natural, untreated American turquoise to the best Native American silver and goldsmiths in the Southwest, we enable collectors of fine quality Native American Jewelry to obtain the best Navajo, Hopi and Santo Domingo jewelry for the best prices.
With the exception of the Bisbee turquoise, a small percentage of Kingman turquoise, some high grade Morenci and the clear usually stabilized or otherwise enhanced turquoise found at the Sleeping Beauty mine in Globe Arizona, most high grade natural turquoise mined in the United States originates in Nevada. To find active mines in Nevada was like looking for a needle in a haystack – a haystack located a long way from our New Mexico base.
Unlike the Arizona mines, Nevada turquoise mines are usually mined by prospectors in small family-owned businesses. The Arizona turquoise is, by and large, a by-product of large copper mining ventures and, hence, relatively easy to acquire. The copper mines sell a concession to a turquoise company who picks it up. These companies, then, have no need for costly excavators, dozers, drill rigs for blasting, dump trucks, screening plants or other equipment. Reclamation expenses are also borne by the large copper mining companies. Because this turquoise is a by-product of a huge copper mine, most of it is now depleted. The copper mines are largely offshore in places like Chile. An exception to this is the Blue Gem mine which was located in Nevada and is extinct today as all of the turquoise was mined out with the copper .