Bisbee Turquoise
The Bisbee Turquoise
mine, near Bisbee, Arizona, is one of the most famous Turquoise mines
in America.
Bisbee Turquoise has developed a reputation
as a hard, finely webbed, strikingly brilliant blue stone of a high
quality. High-quality Bisbee Turquoise is a hard, strikingly
brilliant blue stone often with red-brown
spiderwebbing, dendrites or hard chocolate brown colored matrix
distinctive to the area near Bisbee. Bisbee Turquoise can be
found in many different shades of color and quality, from a soft pale
blue to brilliant deep and most every shade of blue in between. Green
Turquoise is also found in Bisbee, but gem-quality green is rare.

Bisbee Turquoise was
originally discovered by the Phelps Dodge Company while mining for
copper in the 1950's. It was found in an area of the Bisbee mine at
what is known as the Lavendar
Pit. They found the deposits of Bisbee Turquoise
until the mid to late 1960's. During the time that the largest quantities
of turquoise were being extracted from the mine, the company made
no organized effort to recover it. It simply got loaded into large
dump trucks and hauled off to the "dumps". Almost all recovered
turquoise was picked up by company employees, taking it home in their
lunch boxes, etc. Though this activity was prohibited, it was rarely
enforced. For several years (mostly the early to late 70s), these
individuals locally know as "dumpers", were the only source
for this fine American Turquoise.
In March of 1972 a miner named Bob Matthews was given
the only lease ever granted for rights to mine Bisbee
turquoise. He was said to have recovered more than 2,000 pounds
of good to excellent turquoise by 1974.
Most Bisbee
jewelry being made with Bisbee Turquoise today is from
long-time collectors of the stone, miners, old stashes and collections
that are getting harder and harder to find every year. This is truely
a rare Turquoise as there really was never that much of it to begin
with and if there is any left in the mine it will take an act of God
to get it out. Recently, the Phelps Dodge made the claim that there
is no more turquoise in the dumps and covered them up with over 50
feet of dirt and dead rock.
Read a
neat Bisbee Turquoise story
We buy Bisbee Turquoise Jewelry, Bisbee Turquoise Cabs,
Bisbee Turquoise Rough or other rare
Bisbee Minerals such as Bisbee Chatoyant Malechite..... Please contact
John Hartman