"Turquoise Backing Story" by our friend, Jim Saunders

Turquoise backing information.

"Turquoise Backing Story" by Jim Saunders

MR. Saunders is Lapidary professional, multiple turquoise mine operator and jeweler of over 35 years, and was kind enough to write this article for us all to benefit from. Thank you Jim.

Turquoise Backing Story

Turquoise is backed because of many reasons. Turquoise is a very fragile stone. Most turquoise if it was not backed you could brake it in two with your fingers. The matrix that gives the stone its very beauty is usually where the stone will break or crack. Turquoise is its own formation and the matrix another and the two will usually part if stressed. You will notice that this matrix is actually for the most part a bunch of tiny pieces of turquoise that have formed with a coating around each. When you cut across these tiny pieces you get a spider web pattern. The more the web the weaker that the stone can be. So the very thing that gives turquoise its highest value the matrix, is also what can break it apart. The Indians when they wore turquoise found that it would crack along these matrix partitions and they started to develop a cure for this problem. Some of the earliest forms of backing are very interesting and varied. The most common was to take a Ford Model T car battery casings and glue the turquoise to it. This evolved into using old phonograph records. These early records were very thick not like the records in the 1950’s and later. I am sure that there were many more things that were used over the years. I started cutting turquoise in 1973 and after a search found that the stuff on the back of turquoise was a liquid steel that was manufactured by the Devcon corp. Back when I started knowledge was hard to come buy and there were then and still are secrets that we each develop. This liquid steel is very strong and does not shrink or warp and is very stabile. When you put this on the back of turquoise it gives a very fragile stone a foundation of strength that has proved over time to work very well. Backing turquoise is a turquoise industry standard. We in this turquoise business expect turquoise to be backed and would find it very unfavorable to not be backed. We stand behind or jewelry and expect the jewelry to last for generations. Homebuilders have something that they put down before building a house and this is called a foundation. I am sure that the earliest builders did not start building houses with foundations, but these first houses probably fell apart and these first builders found a cure for the walls that sagged and fell apart and this was what developed foundations. Turquoise is the same in this respect, To ignore what has been developed over the last 100 + years with backing, is ignorance and a direct insult to all the turquoise cutters and the Indians that have figured out a cure to make turquoise last and hold up under wear.

Stabilized turquoise

Turquoise comes out of the ground in many grades. Most turquoise that is mined is a soft and porous grade. This grade is called chalk, because it looks chalky. Turquoise for the most part is a porous stone and these pours will fill over the years with skin oils, soap, sweat, and chemicals, Lotions etcetera. I have found with my 35 + years in the turquoise business that a lot of turquoise that is sold as natural should have been stabilized. Because over the years this so called natural absorbed these for mentioned ingredients and changed color to that of an ugly burnt brown green. So I think that it should have been stabilized to prevent this.

Stabilization is as the word says “stabile. There are a lot of treatments given to turquoise over the last several hundred years, such as soaking in sheep’s fat to other oils. In the late 1900’s there were several things tried to make turquoise color better or to harden the stone. Most of these I will classify as “treated”. These treatments were more than I or a team of investigators could find. I will mention a few that I am aware of but do not endorse, such as soaking in mineral oil was one of the most popular but the oil would stain and leak out. Soaking in melted paraffin was very popular and fairly stabile as it did not leak but if the stone got hot would leak. Whale blubber was another good one. Water glass was still another. I have even heard that soaking in a blue toilet bowel cleaner would improve the color. About the time I got into the turquoise business a man named Leonard Hardy was working as a shovel operator at one of the large copper mines and got the rights to the turquoise at it. Most of the turquoise was this soft and very porous chalk and was worthless in that state. He developed a process to fill the pours of the turquoise with a polymer and this process became known as Stabilized.

Stabilized is turquoise that the pours are filled with an epoxy polymer under vacuum and pressure in a very controlled process. There were many attempts at this process but only a few have mastered it. This turquoise becomes very stabile and is widely used and worn. Stabilized makes the best beads and nuggets as they wear well and hold together well. Stabilized is not junk and worthless turquoise, as some dealers would suggest. Stabilized is also graded into several grades and can get very expensive depending again on the intensity of color and the matrix patterns and of course spider web. Higher grade stabilized is more expensive than medium grade natural or untreated turquoise. Stabilized is a very good choice to wear in a ring, bracelet or a buckle. As these get a lot of wear on them and get banged into hard objects. Higher-grade investment natural is very expensive and rare. But who is to say that the stabilized will not be worth more in the future as well. The Kingman turquoise mine is all gone and the stabilized from it had a very unique look that only it had. This High-grade stabilized turquoise from the Kingman mine is some of my most prized pieces in my personal stash. I would not know how to replace it. I can find on the current turquoise market every grade of turquoise natural including the Landers looking material found at several mines and still being mined. But The Kingman mine is gone and the only rough left is in old stashes and when it is gone that is it. You can not replace it; it had a very unique to itself look that has not been found in the several hundred turquoise mines since.

NOTE: In the Thunderbird supply catalog they have written a comment that ALL Kingman should be stabilized , I use that a lot also. They are the largest silver- turquoise suppliers to the Indians. Another very strong Statement to use to back up your position. They also sell the backed turquoise and classify it as all of their freeform cut turquoise cabs.

Author , Jim Saunders

Jim is an avid miner and reputable turquoise dealer, thanks Jim for article, your friendship and valuable advice.

He usually has offerings that can be found on e bay from his own turquoise mines.

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