Turquoise doublet

Even good quality turquoise can be brittle and the pressure on a
wheel has cracked many a stone. 

Have you ever handle good quality turquoise ? You obviously never
read my article ! But if you did, you would know that turquoise is a
french word which simply means Turkish. The real name of gemstone is
phyruza, which means victorious in Farsi. Furthermore, you would
learn that primary use of Turquoise was decorating handles of daggers
and swords to ensure victory for it’s owners. There are a lot of fine
blades in museums around the world having thousands of marks of edge
to edge encounters, but turquoise in handles is unblemished. I hope
you realize how ridiculous you sound and stop embarrassing yourself.

Leonid Surpin

IMO putting a backing on a cab, particularly turqouise, is a bad
idea. You can stabilise it's height in a setting without adding
some foreign material (other than crushed turquoise) that may
create a problem for the person that may do a repair job later in
the piece's life. Just use the real thing and adjust your design.
I don't know anyone that would even consider using a turquoise
doublet. it's a far cry from opal and comparing the two are like
comparing apples and firewood.. 

What bothers me about this is that some people sound so holy about
their opinions in relationship to their practices in relationship to
what others do.

Forget about intrinsic or perceived value and relate to gem
materialsas a material for expression of a concept or expression of
creativity and I think we can take off the being right hat.

Backing turquoise has been around in my world since the 1960’s. It
was a standard practice to protect turquoise before stabilization.
If you have an issue with the practice, don’t buy it! What is
preferred, stabilized, dyed turquoise that is not backed, or natural
untreated turquoise that is backed? Your answer is right, though it
might differ from mine, my answer is also right.

Raising a cab can be done for visual impact. There are people who
work in 22 kt and use inner bezel to raise height of stone. Is this a
misrepresentation as to the true carat weight of the gem? I do not
think so, raising the gem is to present the gem as if on a pedestal,
the metalwork used a a medium to enhance the gem without taking away
from the beauty of the gem. I have used doublet opals for many years
and there has been a few problems, but overall, I have many very
happy customer that have something of beauty that they could not
afford if I used solid opals. The reality is that if a solidopal is
used in a ring, I can count on, over time, the gem being chipped
cracked or just “disappearing” from the mounting, even when
disclosing to the customer the inherent fragility of opals, the
customer wants what the customers. I do the same disclosure with
pearls used in rings, same issue, depending on how rough the customer
is with the jewelry they wear.

I have material I paid $4000-5000 for one ounce for cutting
material. And Istill use and value high quality doublets. They
afford me an opportunity to make beautiful and affordable designs.
It is about using gems as materialfor expression. There are a lot of
people that make expensive costume jewelry, not make to last, just a
current fashion statement.

Hans Meevis makes gems that are lamented and then faceted. Am I
supposed to judge or criticize his form of artistic expression? I
envy his creativity, he expresses a freedom to not be limited by
conventional concepts.

The finest opal I have ever had the pleasure of owning was a crystal
based opal, with a magnificent blue green that rolled inside and the
colors were very intense. It was sold to me by an Australian opal
dealer. It was a doublet. With my knowledge as a cutter, the color
could not be seen to effect if it was not backed with the black
backing. The opal was sold to an art dealer who had a gallery in
Cherry Creek, the expensive shopping district in Denver, Co. It was
set in a heavy 18kt gold mounting.

As long as there is disclose as to what I am selling and make the
customer aware of issues or fragility about any gem material, I can
use any material to express my creativity and have my work accepted
or rejected by my customers. I think in the course of this tread
someone said they have never keystoned their work. I do not know what
that means, I do not know how they priced their materials or their
labor, but to me that concept is a self imposed limitation that is
not based on anything relation to business. Due to the economy, I
have had to raisemy prices based on what it costs me to stay in
business and I raised my prices, probably double what I used to
charge and I cannot have a concept about what I should do asopposed
to what I have to do to support myself and my staff. I am 66, if I
file for social security, it will pay about $700 a month. I chose
expressing myself creatively over the last 23 years instead of doing
what would have provided financial security, and I do not regret it
in any way, shape or form. Sometime opinions are just our brains way
of justifying something and has no real bearing on anything of
consequence. If I am working ethically and in my integrity, all I
have to do is inform my customer so they cannot get from
any knowledgeable source that is in conflict with the I
give them about any of the materials I give them. How I value my
work, the materials and the design does not necessarily correspond to
any intrinsic value of the materials.

That gives me freedom to express myself. The sum of the whole is
greater than the sum of the parts…

When I value my skill and ability to design, create, and make, some
of my customers value my skill and ability to to design, create, and
make.

Just my not so humble opinions. Helped in part by so many happy
customers, when you hear, “It’s perfect” so may times, there is
freedom to take risks, and there is great reward in that, for me.

Richard Hart G. G.
Denver, Co.

Leonid; please forgive me for having an opinion and for my extreme
stupidity. Of course you are the expert on such matters. I’m just a
dumb shmuck who happens to live in Bisbee and cuts and deals with
turquoise every day. I don’t quite know why saying a stone can be
brittle equated to my not knowing the real definition of turquoise
and I’m sure those museum pieces were made by craftsmen who had
their pick of the very best. I deal in reality and the reality is I
work with what I can get or am given to work with by customers.
Maybe some day I’ll be smart too you never know.

All this talk of turquoise doublets reminded me of an incident back
in May. I keep inexpensive cabs and stones I buy, then decided I
don’t want to use them, on hand for my students to buy. One student,
lovely woman, but truly from another planet, who kept my TA busy in
class. That student bought a pair of stabilized turquoise cabs from
me and some time later, I could smell resin burning so I ran over to
the soldering table. Never in my many years of teaching have a
student actually leave the student in the bezel and try to solder the
bezel. I screamed at the poor student “You don’t ever solder your
bezel with the stone in place!”. I’m not a screamer, but boy, I lost
control, plus dealing with a head injury on top of that, I was
seriously rattled. That student won’t repeatthat mistake. She really
was in an alternative reality - it was interesting talking to her. On
the plus side, she bought two expensive ringsof mine, so that kind of
helped.

Joy

What is unfortunate in this discussion reflects what seems obvious,
that the vast majority of people who want turquoise don’t have a
clear idea of the differences between adulterated/treated and
unadulterated/untreated stone. This is true of the general public as
well as unfortunately most jewelry makers I’ve run into.

So to begin with, one thing we in the industry all should know, the
single most important thing we can do is full disclosure of all
treatments, fakes and simulants. With turquoise for instance, you
not only have stabilization (infused with epoxy) and backing, but
you also have reconstituted. That’s when the chalky material is
ground up into a powder, mixed with a resin and pressed into a stone
shape, then hardened. Besides that there are other stones that are
died, chief among them Howlite, a soft stone which is died to
resemble turquoise. This problem has gotten so bad there is a whole
category of “Howlite turquoise” on Ebay. Then too there is just
plain plastic and also I’ve seen glass.

However, even when there is full disclosure, because of the general
ignorance of most people in the quality of turquoise, many don’t
understand that they are going to have to pay significantly more for
natural stone than treated or faked. Natural turquoise is scarce
these days.

I’ve been cutting and selling untreated turquoise of many different
kinds for quite a few years and rarely do I run across people who
know or appreciate the difference between the real untreated and
everything else.

Even in this discussion, people are saying how soft turquoise is.
Well some natural stone like from the old Kingman mine area, may be
very much silicated and is significantly harder than your average
turquoise or even the average opal. For that matter, as to opal,
stone from the Mintabie field can be quite significantly harder than
most other opal. Certainly harder than other Australian opal and
even more so than Ethiopian or any American opal. Yup, I’ve cut
large amounts of opal too.

I’ve also taught opal cutting and carving in several places around
the country including Tucson.

As to backing of opals, as far as I’m concerned there are a couple
of legitimate reasons to back opals. 1. a great piece of stone with
a lot of fire is too thin and fragile to use in jewelry unbacked, or

  1. you want to change the background color to darken a lighter
    colored translucent stone to enhance the fire. As long as the
    treatment is disclosed, that should not be a problem.

So I guess the sum total of this is if you’re going to buy and use
material, educate yourself on what you want and decide if you want
the real thing or something less than that.

And too always be aware that there are people out there ready,
eager, and willing to fool you.

Derek Levin
Gemmaker.com

Forget about intrinsic or perceived value and relate to gem
materialsas a material for expression of a concept or expression
of creativity and I think we can take off the being right hat. 

There is simple solution if artistry is a prime motivation. Use lab
grown They are available in any color, size, and shape.
That will be an honest way to go. But making inferior material appear
like gemstone is questionable ethics at best.

Leonid Surpin

Have you ever handle good quality turquoise ? You obviously never
read my article ! 

Just wondered Leonid, not having read your article, how many
thousands of carats of turquoise have you cut and polished? Thomas
III

If one refuses to listen to someone with a wealth of experience and
demonstration of quality manufacture who willingly shares his
expertise through his blog i. e. Leonid then it is no wonder one
justifies crap gems as "All my customers can afford." As for
pretense those of us who have a genuine family coat of arms,
granted for service to the crown, find adding a numeral at the end
of ones name an Americanism that is nothing more than a feeble
joke. See we Scots can be as rude as the pretentious Americans. As
for backing turquoise with epoxy I have no expertise in this area
(honest I am) so I will not comment. 

This is the problem with judging from a short posting. I have my own
Irish coat of arms, I am as proud of my heritage as you seem to be
of yours. My disdain for the 1%ers is well justified, and I earned
the right to bitch because I spent a year in Nam “fighting” for the
privilege to do so, if you listen to the rich. What I found out over
there, is that I was a stupid young man (turned 21 while there)
being played by the oil companies because I believed in the kind of
crap you expound. My personal life is something you know nothing
about. I built my own house and two shops, on my own 8 acres in the
country out of mostly recycled materials. I learned, once again over
there, from the poor people caught up in a war promoted by some oil
conglomerates, just how affluent we Americans (including me) really
are. We use the vast majority of the worlds resources, and justify it
just like you do your triple keystone. Calling the Americans
pretentious really can’t be defended, because in general the whole
world knows we are. I did get to watch the loud, brash Aussies outdo
us in the same establishments the foreigners all frequented. I also
got to hang with some of the local people who made perfectly
acceptable little homes from the trash we (Aussies and Americans)
discarded. I have spent my adult life as a sort of recycling center
for the locals here in some of the poorest counties in our state, and
I am quite proud of the home I built and provided for my wife and
family. I did have to work 12-16 hrs a day to do so, but I got to do
what I loved, and made hundreds of people happy in the process. You
calling me pretentious is wildly ironic. I do envy you one thing, no
one next to me has ever had a stall that sold didgeridoos, and
beautiful INEXPENSIVE opals. I have to usually pay someone 300.00 for
the same stone you got for 100.00. Ah well… I do get to eat
freshly grown peaches and apples grown right down the ridge from me,
and sometimes the grower just gives them to me with a wink.

Thomas III

The problem of generalizing when speaking of people is that is just
doesn’t apply to each and every person, no matter what the country
those people are from. Lines on a map are just that and have changed
hundreds of times over the years. Why do we feel it is ok to lump
people into one group with the same characteristics and yet we look
at each OOAK fine jewelry piece as individual and unique? Don’t
people deserve the same respect as a hunk of gold and rocks? Barbara

Can we Ganoksin people stick to jewellery on this forum, and not get
into bitching and slanging matches, please?

Janet

Can we Ganoksin people stick to jewellery on this forum, and not
get into bitching and slanging matches, please? 

Hi Janet, I agree. It was my fault for rising to the bait. I did
apologize. Pitiful I know, but that’s all I can do. Thomas III