What grade is this turquoise? Possibly value as well?

[anonandy21]

It came from a New mexico Native American reservation.

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=26e9cf9fad2d00f11ebea2ecf3580c0d&oe=57D8D461

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=8d08c4357354878a08bb3d8625d59153&oe=57A83491

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=b87b3d8ae645dac1d0b75a65867815f8&oe=57DC8637

 

[VRBeauty]

Andy - I don't think we have any turquoise experts here. I'm sure there are forums dedicated to American Indian silver, or turquoise, out there. Maybe this one is a good place to start: http://www.turquoisepeople.com/

 

[ennui]

Aside from the tarnished silver, the necklace does not appear to be old. The turquoise is shiny, so I'm going to guess that it is stabilized (that is not a bad thing).

It's nearly impossible to identify turquoise source mine from a photograph.

Imho, because they are nuggets, they may not have any great value. You can surf around eBay and see that it's the large slabs and specimens that hold the most value, and they will have provenance for the source mine.

Unfortunately, the turquoise market is swamped with fakes, and some of those fakes are pretty good. There was an expose a couple of years ago, and even museum stores had been fooled into selling faux turquoise.

ETA Turquoise isn't really graded like other stones. If you love it, it's good turquoise. Some people prefer spider web turquoise, some want the deep blue, some want sky blue, some want Sleeping Beauty without matrix, some want Persian, some like turquoise from China ...

 

[stracci2000]

I live in the southwest, and I see native turquoise jewelry all the time. I own quite a bit myself.

The turquoise appears to be treated and dyed to me, if it is even true turquoise.
There is a big problem here with other dyed blue stones (like chrysocolla, magnesite and howlite) being sold as authentic turquoise.
Those spacers look like dyed freshwater pearls. Traditional native jewelry does not employ pearls.

I would say that this was made more recently, for the tourist trade, and would be valued around $50-100.