Turquoise Value, Price, and Jewelry Information

In this detailed turquoise guide, you'll learn:

• The key factors that determine turquoise value, including color intensity, matrix patterns, and treatment considerations.
• How to identify genuine pieces and distinguish it from synthetic materials and common simulants in the marketplace.
• Where the world's finest turquoise deposits are located, from American Southwest mines to historic Persian (Iranian) sources.
• Practical care guidelines to maintain the beauty of your jewelry for generations to come.
• The fascinating cultural history of turquoise jewelry across civilizations and time periods.

The Rich History of Turquoise Jewelry

Turquoise has maintained its popularity despite changing fashion trends across millennia. Ancient Egyptians mined it and crafted into jewelry and ceremonial objects as early as 3,000 BCE. Chinese and Ancient American cultures later incorporated turquoise into their artistic traditions. Persia (Iran) introduced Medieval Europe to this captivating gemstone. The stone has inspired numerous legends and folkloric beliefs across diverse cultures.

While the United States traditionally sets turquoise in silver, Middle Eastern and Iranian jewelers historically preferred gold settings, sometimes with diamonds. 

During the Victorian Era, turquoise gained immense popularity, typically set in gold. Today's jewelry designers increasingly follow Persian and Victorian traditions by setting turquoise in gold.

What is Turquoise?

Chemically, turquoise is a hydrated copper/aluminum phosphate with an aggregate, cryptocrystalline structure. Only Lynch Station, Virginia has produced transparent to translucent turquoise crystals (rare specimens commanding premium prices). More commonly, it appears as opaque deposits in nodules, veins within host rocks, or shallow crusts on rock surfaces.

Several minerals relate to turquoise. Faustite, the zinc analogue, displays intense yellow-green color with density in the turquoise range. Turquoise can form in series with chalcosiderite and planerite. Malachite and chrysocolla sometimes grow alongside turquoise.

What Colors Can Turquoise Stones Display?

Turquoise colors range from blue to blue-green to yellowish green depending on the elements present. Copper forms part of turquoise's chemical structure, contributing blue coloration. Chromium and vanadium traces add green tints. Iron traces introduce yellow hues. Rare blue-violet specimens contain strontium impurities.

US mines typically produce slightly greenish-blue to green gems due to high iron and vanadium content. The most admired turquoise displays fine robin's egg or celestial blue coloration with no visible matrix, often called "Persian Blue," indicating minimal vanadium and no iron presence. Iran continues producing this variety, though Arizona's Sleeping Beauty Mine has yielded similar stones.

Does Turquoise Make a Good Jewelry Stone?

How Durable Is Turquoise Jewelry?

While turquoise makes beautiful jewelry, it has some physical limitations. With proper cutting, treatment, and care, however, turquoise jewelry becomes a wonderful addition to any collection.

It is relatively fragile, porous, and vulnerable to heat/chemical damage. Stones average 18-20% water content. When heated (as with a jeweler's torch), water progressively escapes until structural integrity breaks down at 400°C.

Due to these properties, reserve turquoise jewelry for occasional wear. Protect pieces from heat, chemicals, and physical impacts by using protective settings, especially for rings.

How Do Matrix Patterns Impact Durability?

Most turquoise rough contains matrix—patches or veins of host rock such as chalcedony, opal, brown limonite, black chert, or white kaolinite. Lapidaries often include this brownish or black matrix in cuts to provide color contrast and patterns.

Matrix significantly affects color appearance and overall aesthetics, stone toughness and durability, and workability and polishability. Generally, higher silicate mineral content increases hardness and decreases porosity. Conversely, higher clay mineral content creates softer, more porous stones.

The spectrum ranges from minimally porous pieces with hardness 5.5-6 that take bright polish to soft, chalky specimens with hardness 3, so porous they require stabilization for use.

How to Identify Genuine Turquoise

Turquoise can have a distinctive absorption spectrum, with lines at 4600 (vague) and 4320. These are usually seen in light reflected from the stone's surface.

The specific gravity (SG) of stones from different sources varies. While there is some overlap, some of the measurements at the extreme ends can help identify sources.

• Iran: 2.75-2.85
• United States: 2.6-2.7
• China: 2.70
• Eilat, Israel: 2.56-2.70
• Sinai Peninsula, Egypt: 2.81
• Tibet: 2.72
• Bahia, Brazil: 2.40-2.65

What Determines Turquoise Value and Price?

When assessing turquoise value, jewelers and collectors primarily consider color evenness and saturation. A stone's ability to take a good polish without stabilization also significantly impacts its worth.

Generally, darker blue shades command higher prices than lighter tones. Less green tint in blue colors increases value considerably. Spiderweb turquoise, veined with black matrix in crocheted lace-like patterns, enjoys premium pricing. Matrix patterns attract dedicated collectors who value different variations.

High-grade turquoise typically becomes cabochons, carvings, and inlay, while lower grades appear as polished or natural "nugget-style" beads.

Turquoise enjoys a passionate collector market with enthusiasts favoring different colors, matrix variations, and mine sources. These preferences create interesting market dynamics that affect pricing, as detailed in our turquoise appraisals article.

No gem collection feels complete without several turquoise specimens, and no jewelry collection should lack at least one piece featuring this beloved December birthstone (also the birthstone for those born on Saturday). For more information on value factors, consult our buying guide.

Are There Synthetic Turquoise Stones?

Synthetic turquoise exists, with or without matrix. The Pierre Gilson Company created the most well-known type in 1972, which can resemble the finest Persian grade stones. However, a microscope reveals clear differences. Natural stones display smooth surfaces. Synthetics show tiny blue spheres in a light-colored host medium resembling "cream of wheat."

Common Turquoise Lookalikes to Watch For

Many turquoise simulants appear in the marketplace. Non-mineral imitations include plastics, ceramics, and glass, often appearing quite realistic.

Remember that the color "turquoise" enjoys tremendous popularity. Items marketed as "turquoise beads" or "turquoise jewelry" may contain only turquoise-colored materials rather than genuine pieces. Always ask vendors questions and read descriptions carefully. For example, "Viennese turquoise" merely refers to artificially blue-tinted argillaceous earth. Learn more about materials sold under false or misleading gemstone names.

Natural stones sometimes mistaken for turquoise include Variscite, which can resemble green turquoise, and sometimes forms with turquoise in "variquoise" rocks. Prosopite, especially Mexican material with its light-blue color, serves as another potential simulant.

Are Turquoise Gemstones Commonly Enhanced?

Most turquoise on today's market has received some treatment or enhancement. Pale specimens commonly undergo extensive treatments to improve their color. Fine-grained, compact material that takes good polish remains rare. Even top-grade, otherwise natural stones often receive paraffin wax surface coatings to seal them and enhance polish.

The following enhancement methods appear frequently and prove difficult to detect without specialized knowledge and testing equipment.

Impregnation and Stabilization Treatments

All but the highest grades of turquoise may be impregnated or stabilized through pressure infusion with wax, oil, natural resin, or epoxy resin.

Small, porous pieces sometimes get pressed together with resin binder to create stabilized mosaics. These pressings aren't always obvious to casual observers.

Zachery Treatment

An electro-chemical proprietary enhancement process called the Zachery Treatment has been promoted as an alternative to traditional stabilization that improves both durability and color evenness.

Dye Treatments

Turquoise itself rarely receives dyed treatments, though dyes sometimes enhance impregnation fillers.

More commonly, other materials receive dye treatments to simulate turquoise. Howlite, with its white and grey-veined appearance, readily accepts dye. Blue-dyed howlite frequently enters the market, sometimes without proper disclosure. Vendors occasionally sell natural howlite as "white turquoise"—a misleading term since no such thing exists. 

Dyed magnesite can also resemble turquoise. In recent years, this material has gained popularity as a simulant. If properly disclosed, this is acceptable. If not, again, buyer beware.

Beware of so-called "yellow turquoise" imported from China as well. Some stones do indeed have a natural light yellow-green color. However, vendors offer some very bright sunshine or butter-yellow dyed pieces without much effort to discriminate them from the non-dyed material.

Reconstituted Turquoise Materials

A mixture of ground natural turquoise and plastic or other materials, reconstituted turquoise is cheap, easy to cut, and readily available. Although this material does contain natural turquoise, there is some debate over whether this material counts as a synthetic, a hybrid gem, or a simulant.

Turquoise Treatment Characteristics

• Plastic impregnation, sometimes with dye: improves durability and color, common, stable. Detect with low specific gravity, hot point, magnification.
• Wax impregnation: improves color, common, may pick up dirt and discolor. Detect with hot point, magnification.
• Epoxy impregnation: improves color slightly, makes porous material stronger and able to accept a polish, common, stable. Detect with magnification.
• Dyeing with shoe polish: enhances webbing, common, stable except to acetone. Detect by wiping with acetone.
• Epoxy backing (doublets): adds strength and weight, common, may separate. Detect by sight.
• Surface coating with epoxy, lacquer, etc: improves color, seals dye, rare, stability varies. Detect with magnification.

Please note: hot point and dye testing are destructive tests. Conduct them only as a last resort for identification.

Where Are the Best Turquoise Stones Found?

Turquoise usually occurs in arid regions, where ground water percolates through aluminous rock in the vicinity of copper deposits. Like azurite, malachite, and opal, it's a secondary mineral that forms through the interaction of pre-existing minerals and their solutions. The majority of today's commerce in turquoise comes primarily from North America and China.

Some connoisseurs may be able to tell the actual mine of origin of many cut gemstones because of distinctive nuances in color and matrix. The variation in these characteristics is enormous.

United States Deposits

The US deposits are almost exclusively limited to the southwest states, with some notable exceptions. (Turquoise is the official state gemstone of Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico).

Lynch Station, Virginia

Lynch Station represents the only well-known occurrence of turquoise crystals, typically producing microscopic specimens. Occasionally, larger specimens tempt gem cutters, resulting in very tiny faceted gems (under one carat).

Nevada

Nevada is home to more mines than Arizona, California, Colorado, and New Mexico put together.

The better known localities include the following:

• Blue Gem Mine: large variation in color, noted for blue and green colors in the same stone.
• Fox Mine: huge production; active since 1915.
• Lander Blue Mine: finely divided spiderweb, with tiny turquoise specks, rare and highly valued today.
• Stormy Mountain Mine: dark blue, hard material with black chert matrix.

Other notable mines in Nevada: Papoose, Zuni, Montezuma, Crow Springs, Carlin, Red Mountain, and Godber.

Arizona

• Bisbee: intense dark blue material, wispy matrix.

• Kingman: some deep blue material has been treated to improve color.
• Sleeping Beauty Mine: although this source no longer produces, its blue material with little matrix can be found in old collections and antique jewelry.

New Mexico

• Santa Rita: pale to deep blue colors.
• Los Cerrillos: historically blue colors, now green colors with brown matrix.

Other Notable Sources in the United States

• Arkansas; California; Leadville, Colorado (small stones, deep blue with a tinge of green).

Iran: Historic Source of Premium Turquoise

Historically, Persia (Iran) produced the finest material, and considerable production continues from this region. Iranian pieces has become almost synonymous with highest quality material.

The District of Nishapur, on Ali-mersai Mountain, yields turquoise in porphyry and trachyte rocks, cemented by brown limonite. The color displays lovely uniform sky blue, often intensely saturated, sometimes veined by thin lines of limonitic matrix. These mines have operated for centuries.

China

Some mines appear to have operated in ancient times. Archaeological finds dated as early as 1,300 BCE indicate the possibility of a centuries-old exploitation of local deposits.

Currently, the Wudang mountain area of northwestern Hubei Province and Shaanxi Province, about 150 km to the northwest, produce fine turquoises. The material occurs as compact nodules, typically up to 8 cm, with much larger masses occasionally found. The color ranges from pale blue to light green. Generally, Chinese stones have softer matrix and are more porous than the material from the American Southwest.

Egypt

In the Sinai Peninsula, the Serâbît el Khâdim and Maharâh mines produce turquoise. They operated as early as 1,000 BCE, and the material was used to create jewelry for the Pharaohs. The producing area extends along the Suez Gulf, where the material occurs in sandstone. Earth movements have brecciated the gem and matrix. There is considerable limonite present. The color is blue to greenish blue. Some may fade in the sunlight.

Tibet

As the national gem of Tibet, turquoise could historically be gathered by hand from ground surface. Today, very little material remains available. Green represents the most prized color in Tibetan tradition.

Australia

Australia has yielded dense, compact turquoise of fine color in large deposits. Found in nodules that may reach hundreds of pounds, this material displays solid structure, takes high polish, and shows uniform color. However, it exhibits a slight tendency to shear along planes of weakness. The color resembles Persian (Iranian) variety.

Other Notable Turquoise Sources

• Chile: the Chuquicamata copper mine has yielded material of very fine color. Not much has reached the marketplace.
• Pau a Pique, Bahia, Brazil: porous and cryptocrystalline material, RI ~ 1.618.
• Afghanistan
• India
• Israel
• Kenya
• Baja California
• Sonora and Zacatecas, Mexico
• Uzbekistan

How to Care for Turquoise Rings and Other Jewelry

Turquoise requires special care to maintain its beauty. Avoid mechanical cleaning methods such as ultrasonic or steam systems. Never clean this porous gemstone with soap, detergents, or cleaning solutions. Wipe pieces with a damp cloth, then immediately dry them thoroughly. Always wipe jewelry with a damp cloth after wearing to remove skin oils and cosmetic residues.

For more detailed care recommendations, consult our guide for caring for your turquoises and our general guide to gemstone jewelry cleaning.