Ajax turquoise mine Here is a nice cab from this another well-known Nevada turquoise mine. Ajax turquoise had intense blue colors and a lot of mixtures of blue and green together a very different look in turquoise. This mine is located near Mina, Nevada.On the edge of the Death Valley, a very hot and dry place. This mine was a good producer over the years, but has not seen much activity in many years always wondered why someone would name a turquoise mine after a cleaning soap, then the other day it came to me. This mine sits just above the old town of Columbus, which was known for shipping Borax.Borax was used then for a cleaning agent. At one time was a very large town exceeding 20,000 people. This town sits overlooking a huge salt flat that the 20 mule teams would load with borax and truck it out I guess this gives my age away as I remember the old twenty mule team Borax commercials on Black and white TV, watching the old “gun smoke” or “wagon train” TV shows. I will have to check out old records and see if my theory is right. I had the pleasure of having the Ajax mine for a while and got some good material from it. This mine is in the Candelaria hills just over the hill from the Candelaria silver mine. This is an area of very rich history and goes back to the Spanish that were there mining the silver as well as gem stones. The Ajax I was told even went back to ancient Indians digging it, again that is another thing to check out and verify.
copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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(Battle Mountain Turquoise) - Here is another well-known mining area in Nevada. There are several mines in the Battle Mountain area of Nevada. This area produced awesome turquoise, mostly green colors that have been ignored until recently. The reason some turquoise is found in old stash\\\\\\\'s, is because the color was not popular at that point in time. Most of the 1970\\\\\\\'s if it wasn\\\\\\\'t blue was considered almost worthless. We have come a long way in public education of turquoise. I remember when matrix was considered flaws. It\\\\\\\'s very sad but there is a lot of turquoise that is at the bottom of mine dumps, or was destroyed in the metal refining process because the color or matrix pattern was not popular at the time. I have met several people over the years that mined turquoise in this battle Mountain area of Nevada that complained that the turquoise was green and could not sell it. Some of these people had stock that I was able to purchase and save. Most of them had already got rid of it seen stone comes from one of those purchases. I personally have not mined turquoise in this area.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Bisbee This was mined at the famous bisbee mine in Arizona.This mine produced in my opinion some of the most unique and different turquoise of any of the turquoise mines. The turquoise ran from a pale blue to a very vibrant bright blue. The matrix patterns were awesome, because the mother rock was a lot of the time lavender color, this would cause the matrix to be lavender color, very unique. Even the spiderweb a lot of the time was red or lavender. Of course there are no set rules of what turquoise should look like that came from this mine. Not all the turquoise had the lavender matrix or webbing, some was just pure blue and no matrix or the matrix was the colors that came from the other mines. I thought I was one of the experts that could tell you what mine a stone came from, but after I became a mine owner and was in several mines ,I can tell you I was wrong. There are certain characteristics that only certain mines have and the stones that that mine produces that are within those characteristics can be identified. This stone came out of what they called the lavender pit. They say the lavender pit was named after Harrison Lavender the manager at the Copper Queen, Later he became the Vice President of Phelps Dodge out of Douglas Arizona. I think that was just a coincidence. Had the pit been blue I do not think it would have been named after him. The Lavender pit they say when it rained the water that flowed from it looked almost like blood. I know when I cut a volume of this stone the saw water is almost blood red and so is the water in the grinder, very messy stone to cut. The host rock or mother rock in this pit was a lavender color. A lot of the turquoise mined from this pit has a purple reddish color matrix in it. Turquoise from this mine had a lot of intense colors of blue, red and black very collectable. I consider Bisbee as the Top collectable turquoise. The quality of top grade Bisbee was unmatched by any other mine. Bisbee had a very unique quality to it that no other turquoise had; it was a natural treatment that mother nature put into the turquoise in the ground. Top Bisbee turquoise would actually grow into the matrix and would smoke as it is termed. This smoke was a lavender color .The vibrant blue that would form right next to and with vibrant black and the lavender colors is totally unique. Bisbee also produced high-grade red webbed turquoise. Of course a large percentage of turquoise cut from this mine looks just like the other Arizona mines with absolutely no Lavender color in it at all. I try to cut my cabs with as much of the lavender color that I can leave in the stone. But some rough does not even Have a little of this lavender color matrix, and cuts just a nice blue stone. A good Friend of mine starting back in the 1960’s would go to Bisbee as well as other copper mining towns and sit in the local bars and buy turquoise from the miners as they came in. He would go once a week. This is how a lot of turquoise was acquired back then as the copper mines destroyed the turquoise in the processing of the ore. This is part of an old stash that I put together back in the 1970\'s when turquoise was very plentiful. copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Blue June turquoise mine Here is yet another of the many turquoise mines from Nevada. I have not had much luck in finding out much about this mine, But I have a source that I will be learning more from. This is another of the Clyde Wright properties or least was a property that he worked with the then mine owner. Clyde had the large equipment and it was common to bring it into another mine and work it on a share basis. He had several which included the Damele. He was the first to mine the Damele mine. The Blue June is another of his many mines that he worked in northern Nevada. The Blue June was probably just a new discovery from around the late 1970’s. The turquoise boom had died by then and a lot of these new prospects were then forgotten. As I have mentioned these old dusty bags of turquoise from several decades ago did not come with any mine history with them. In fact in the 1970’s when I got a lot of this turquoise unless the turquoise came from a well known mine it was very difficult to sell as it did not have a following. It was much easier to buy Kingman or one of the other Arizona mines and sell the cut cabs from them. The Arizona mines were easy to get material from back then. So to buy some Damele or Blue June from Clyde Wright back then, you needed your head examined. I just loved turquoise and bought All that I had money for. I was always intrigued when these miners came to Albuquerque to sell turquoise. They were my most envied people on the planet and I could not even dream that I would ever have a mine. That goal was just too far out there for me then. Of course I was just 17 in 1973 when I started cutting turquoise professionally in Albuquerque. I will have a complete story on this mine very soon. I got an email recently that this mine is still in existence and the family that has it does not mine it but they keep it for recreation or for the future.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Candelaria Hills : The Candelaria hills are an area that has a very rich history going back to the Original Native Americans and then the Spanish came and mined this area for primarily silver and gold. The Spanish did find some turquoise and Variscite in this area and mined it also. The modern day interest in this area started in the late 1880’s. There was considerable interest in the turquoise as well as the variscite and Variquoise that this area produces. There is a large commercial mining operation that has primarily mining silver named the Candelaria Silver mine. The turquoise that came from this silver mine was smuggled out in lunch buckets, a very common practice in these large metal mines. The turquoise was a very high grade or at least that is what was brought out of the mine. The Candelaria hills have several gem stone mines with various names over the years. The material that is a high grade Variscite that comes from the foothills has been called Candelaria for over 3 decades now. There are several turquoise mines in these hills also. The Ajax is the most famous of them. There have been several others before the Ajax and since it was found. The Pirate # 3, the Blue Moon, The Green House, The Broken Arrow, The Chipmunk, The Black Spider, The Prince, The Turquoise Butte, The Robins Egg, The Brownie # 2,The Emerald, The Pirate, The Pirate Fraction, The Double, The Sagebrush, The Blue Boy, The Miss Moffet,. And I am furthering my research but I think I will find at least this many more names from further research. When dealing with some of the old miners native to an area, they would just go out into the hills and dig material with little regard as to which mine it came from. It was also a very common practice that when the legitimate miner would pack up and go home for the winter that the other miners that even owned other mines in the area or the locals would then go out and dig on the mines that were left until spring. I will not mention the old well known names that owned mines but I have uncovered this practice from my research. Of course when they mined these other mines they would never disclose which mine it actually came from for obvious reasons. Most would say that this material came from one of the mines that they personally owned. The locals that did not own mines would just say that it came from one of their personal mines that they never filled a claim on. Turquoise mining has its interesting history and is fun in finding these old practices. I am old enough myself to have dealt with some of these people before they passed on. Most have passed on today though.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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The Candelaria Mine Here is yet another of Nevada’s seemingly endless number of mines.This mine has been called many names over the years Including but not limited to---Miss Moffet, The Blue Boy, The Sage Brush, The TV (short for turquoise and Variscite).and finally the Candelaria #1. This mine as far as the research that I have done has had a few names over the years and over times these claims overlapped each other as various pits or deposits had value. This mine goes back to when the Spanish mined it for turquoise and variscite and probably has the most extensive history of all the mines in Nevada.This mine was known in the old world as well into this generation. Has the most beautiful variscite of any of the mines as well as variquoise and turquoise. An awesome mine that I think only the Dameli mine comes close to in the variscite/turquoise/variquoise category. All of these stones are found here and if you send the stone off to be analyzed will come back a mixture of all three or just turquoise or Variscite. The material from this mine is very hard, has a high silica content and some is the hardest material that I have cut. Until I started cutting with diamond wheels I had stones that sat on my shelf for years just to hard. The material has a lot of very unique patterns, lots of Birdseye or just balls of this form together creating unique patterns. This mine has belonged to some interesting unique people over the years and is probably why there is not much of the rough on the market. A hermit had it for many years and lived in the ghost town of Columbus, which sits at the foothills of this mine and would run you off with a shotgun if you went out there and he was not into making money, just dug a little and tumbled it. When He was dying he told the old couple that I got it from to take it over, They did and had it for some time and would take the grand kids out to the mine and gather eggs as they called them, which in reality were pseudomorphs from clams. Only Carico Lake turquoise mine has a few of these from the research that I have been able to do. This Mine has it all. Then I acquired it and have only sold the cabs that I personally cut. I probably will not sell any rough from this mine; it will only be available in my cabs or from old stashes. So this is a very unique and very limited stone. The stones from this mine will be classified as a variety of turquoise/variscite/variquoise. I personally think variscite from Nevada is a very rare and more valuable cousin of turquoise. Stay tunned as I will continue this story. copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Candelaria Mine Pseudomorphs; Now here is a very rare Occurrence. The geologists say that these were once fossil clams. Which under the right conditions are dissolved out of the host rock leaving behind a cavity that the turquoise then forms back into. There are many occurrences of this process in the mineral world. In the case of turquoise and related minerals this is very rare. The Lone Mountain Turquoise mine had a very limited amount of pseudomorphs that were from limbs from small plants. The Carico Lake turquoise mine also has a few of these clam Pseudomorphs as well as the Damele mine. I have found these at two of my other mines but were still just mud hardened in this clam shape but not turquoise. The geologists say that when the clam died if it remained closed in this fossil process then the interior will be full of the turquoise. But if the clam opened then the interior filled with mud and when this clam dissolved only the outer shell will leave this cavity to be filled with the turquoise. Those clams only have the turquoise skin deep on the outside of these pseudomorphs. I have cut quite a few cabs from these, but they are far too valuable as specimens to cut them into cabs anymore. If you have read my Candelaria mine story then you know about the older couple that I bought this mine from. They called these pseudomorphs “EGGS”, So in honor of them I am going to call them Candelaria eggs. When I met this couple we became instant good friends .The years that they had the mine they would take their grand kids out there and dig eggs. The grandkids loved to do this. The eggs are very fun to dig and they usually occur in small groupings that we laughingly call nests. These are the Geodes of the turquoise world. They range in size from as small as a green pea to orange or apple size. Most are about the size of a golf ball. Depending on the conditions of this fossil transformation process is to the degree of how much they still look like a clam. Most do not look exactly like the clam. I also get just broken pieces of these or whatI will call a partial clam. And also there are the clams that grew together that I will call twins or joined groupings. Most of these form in a loose material but some are formed in solid rock and are difficult to get out of the rock in one piece. So far I have not found any other pseudomrph shapes other than the clams. I have seen turquoise formed where there were once crystals and the turquoise formed where the crystal once was forming a turquoise crystal. Pseudomorph means False Form because this current shape is not the original substance that formed it.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Carico Lake Turquoise Mine : This mine is another Nevada mine, one of my favorites. It is located in Lander County, Nevada. Primarily an open pit mine worked with large equipment. The mine owners back in the 1970\\\\\\\'s had a store in Albuquerque, where we could buy the rough turquoise. This was the only mine that had its own store in Albuquerque. The store had bins of rough turquoise and also cabs for sale. I really enjoyed going to this store and looking through the bins of turquoise. Back then the lime green Faustite was not popular yet and was just mixed into the mine run turquoise. I remember liking this unique lime color and picking quite a bit out for myself. But back then I cut turquoise cabs for the turquoise industry and none of them wanted that lime color. What a reversal of opinion today. I bought quite a lot of it and stashed it. From the material that I have seen this mine produces nodules and nuggets, I have never seen any vein material. Primarily green and blue green, but runs into some very vibrant shades of blue. This mine also produces the presently popular lime green colors. Some of the best I’ve seen. The Best Lime green is called Faustite. Carico Lake Turquoise is a phenomenal turquoise to cut; it has a lot color variations and webbing. This has been one of the larger producing turquoise mines in Nevada, and is in operation at various times over the years. Back in the 1970’s they did not bench this mine properly and was shut down for safety reasons for many years by the State mining engineer. I was offered this mine to buy back about 15 years ago but I had other mines and could afford this mine also. I wish that I could have bought it then. It at the time was shut down and needed a lot of work and expense to bring it back into mining compliance. I have heard that this mine is again up and in production but most or all of the material is just stashed and not being sold to the turquoise market. The present owner has another good-sized business within the jewelry trade and does not need to make money from this mine at this time.I get asked all the time for my turquoise sources and where I got my turquoise over the years. Although I bought quite a bit from the Carico Lake store in Albuqureque I did come across Carico Lake material from several sources. I was doing a show back about 15 years ago and a lady artist 2 booths down from me asked me about my turquiose jewelry. She had been the girl friend of one of the mine owners until he passed away . He had given her some Carico turquoise. She wanted to trade it to me if I would make her a piece of jewelry out a piece of it. The material from her was a mix of grades but very nice material about 15 pounds. It filled a gallon jar. It even had some hand written notes it from him about the different grades. I still have most of that material and the notes. There were many situations over my 35 years in this business like this. Of course there were a lot of low grade and junk that I saw also. copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Carlin turquoise Here is a nice stone from another little mine in Nevada. This mine is located in the northeast part of the state. This mine hasn\'t seen any activity in many years, except for old stashes; you won\\\'t find any of this turquoise anymore.
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Old Cerrillos district Mines This mining area is in New Mexico just a few miles south of Santa Fe. This area has the oldest known prehistoric turquoise mines in the world. This was the site of some very extensive ancient mining activity. In modern day, this area has been mined since the Spanish came to America. The Tiffany co. had mines here also. These mines were originally worked for the nice blue color stone that came out of the ground and the green was thrown in the dumps. Very recent mining is for all the colors but most is an intense blue almost electric blue. But for many years this area was know for the interesting greens that came out of the dumps. There are several mines in this Cerrillos area. You can still see from the old pictures taken of the these turquoise hills that the hills still look today as then. The different turquoise deposits run for several miles through a small mountain range that runs from just off Interstate 10 all the way to the town of Cerrillos. Today if you drive what is called the scenic back way to Santa Fe, You are traveling on a road that is called the Turquoise Trail. This road takes you through several old almost ghost mining towns the biggest is the town of Madrid that was known for coal minning. Today these old towns are the background for some of the recent old west movies shot in this area. In fact there is a movie ranch that sits behind the hills that are the old Tiffany mines. Several old gold mines in this area also. Santa Fe county has a no hard rock mining rule so today there is no hard rock mining and all or most of the material from this area is from the old dumps. This is very rare and hard to find material form this area. Professionally backed for strength and hand cut in my studio in the USA.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Chipmunk Mine Here is another of Nevada’s seemingly endless supply of turquoise mines. That may seem the case but most of these mines are very small one-man operations that produced just a pocket of turquoise and was mined out by the original finder. This mine is located in Esmeralda County and is in the Candelaria Hills. This is an area of several good turquoise and variscite locations. This mine was not mined much under the name Chipmunk and I am not sure how far this mine goes back, but a least 25 years. It has been in the last 10 years in the hands of an old well-known turquoise family. They have renamed the mine The Broken Arrow. We caught a poacher on the mine recently that had torn down the legal markers and had claimed it under the name Blue Creek. But was selling the material under the Miss Moffet mine name and the Blue Creek Mine name. We have a lot of interesting stories from the past and even present-day turquoise mining history. This mine has a beautiful green color that can run into a beautiful translucent green that Rivals the best that I have seen from any mine. The green colors are unique to this mine and it does have its own distinct look. The Broken Arrow will be in production this next year and from what I saw will give us a lot of the much-needed green colors. It will still be a very limited production and do not know if any rough will be available. Even us so called experts can be fooled at times. I recently bought some of this material and thought it was from claimed locations but was confused it just did not look right. I went out to this mine and located the vein that it came from. You can’t fool a turquoise cutter of 35 years. So sometimes we have to filter out what we are told and try to come up with correct information. I have a good stash from years ago when this mine was the Chipmunk. The material that I saw that was recently mined looked the same as the old material. This location produces both vien material and nuggets. The nuggets can get large. There is some loose material that is in a larger vien that is a blue green color with loose graining. I saw a large blue turquoise vein running next to the green material. Funny how nature works that way. The turquoise was not near the quality of the green material. However I only saw a little and in a few inches back that could change to high grade you never know.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Cripple Creek Colorado Turquoise : This mine is located in Teller County near the town of Cripple Creek Colorado., and has not seen much activity over the years. Colorado does not have many turquoise mines, and the few it has do not see much activity over the years. This mine produced nodules and vein material, mostly greenish. A lot of very pourus material, Also produced light and darker blue turquoise with a brown or black matrix. I understand this mine is currently being worked on a very limited level by hand. From what information I have this is mined from a tunnel, which would be why you do not see much of this material. Tunnels are not big producers of turquoise. Tunnels are a lot of very hard work with very little yield. Most of the turquoise from this area was uncovered by mining gold. Turquoise from here was a by-product of gold mining. We heard the rumor that when the road grader went over a road in the country that it would actually uncover turquoise in the street, and you could pick it up. I am not sure of this but the tailings from the gold mines were used to gravel the streets and had turquoise in the tailings. You could actually find little pieces of turquoise in the gravel, especially after a rain. I always wanted to go up there and follow up on this but the pressures of the jewelry manufacturing left me very little extra time. I have a good friend that back in the 1950’s his father played ragtime piano in the old Imperial Hotel with the melodrama that was put on in the basement. He also played at the Red Rooster Lounge .Being as he was a teenager at the time and underage had some time to kill. He remembers picking up these little turquoise nuggets that were in the dirt streets all over town. From what he remembers they were a nice bright blue and would really show up well after a rain. This was his favorite time to look for them .They were about the size of his little finger in diameter. I have received several emails confirming these little pieces in the street that came from the gold mines tailings. The street department used this material in the streets. While this material was from the gold mines there was a couple of turquoise mines in this area. There is the original old mine up the hill from what is being mined today under the Bad Boys of Cripple Creek name. There is a little activity from them today. As for the older mine time will tell. I did see several hundred pounds of it this last year and was not very impressed with quality and the price was totally out of line.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Damele Turquoise mine: Spelled many ways Damele, Damalie,Damale. However the present owner spells it Damele and it is HIS mine so this is his spelling. Here is another awesome Nevada turquoise mine. Benny Damele discovered this mine about 1973 and mining didn’t start until Clyde Wright acquired the mine soon after that. Clyde mined the mine for almost 18 yrs. And now you have the 2nd owner. A lot of mines produce a high percentage of low and medium grade material. Damele produced a high percentage of good and high-end material. This has to be one of my favorite mines to cut stone from. I love the patterns and the shades of green and what is termed Smoke. This is where black starts to come into the green and smoke it out sometimes becoming almost black. The patterns that this mine produces are awesome. Good webbing and a lot of Birdseye material. This is a private mine that is only mined on a very controlled level and the stone is available very sporadically. I have bought rough from the owner many years ago and also have come across a few stashes. A very difficult stone to come across. . I did not come across any of this material until 1990 +. Of course in the turquoise boom of the 1970’s green was almost worthless. I just had a passion for green and I would cut it and put it into MY jewelry, but no one wanted any green. Which when you come to today is a good thing because had green been in great demand then, they would have already mined it out, So green material was preserved out of ignorance and timing for us today. This mine is located outside of Austin Nevada in the Dry Creek Ranch owned by the Damele family, they raise unique horses there that carry the Damele name. This is where the name of this mine comes from. There is another well known mine close to this mine the Godber. This mine is on the flats just as you are getting into the foothills of a mountain range, one of the more pretty locations for a mine. Just starting to get to an elevation that has the smaller pine trees like juniper and pinion a very scenic location. The mine that I had was on top of a mountain that looked down on this mine. I would drive by the Damele on the way to my mine. A lot of turquoise mines are located on very desolate property that looks like lunar landscape. It has come to my attention that other sellers of Damele indicate that the only true turquoise that this mine ever produced was years ago and was only found on the surface or from the very first mining of this mine, as seem to run in this turquoise business is a lot of speculations and the indication that only certain dealers have the true good old turquoise and only they have it and if you want true old stuff they are they only source. This could not be further from the truth about this mine. The Damele mine produces both turquoise and variscite and blends of the two. I have cut cabs from the first material from this mine as well as what was dug just this summer. I do see some differences but the Damele produces top grade turquoise and variscite over the years right up to what I bought this summer from the owner. The turquoise and variscite from this mine look very similar and only a trained eye could tell the difference. Myself I actually like variscite over turquoise and find it is a more unique stone to cut and has a much wider patterns and color. I would say but can’t be sure that this mine actually produces more turquoise than variscite today. And the quality today is awesome. The material from this mine is primarily high grade so it does not produce an abundance of material. This is very limited material and is hard to get even today.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Fox turquoise Mine : Here is another Nevada turquoise mine, located in Lander County in the Bullion district about 1.5 miles southwest from the mouth of the Cortez canyon. This mine was discovered around 1910-1912, and became very active around 1915.George Schmidthlein had a servant in his household that showed him this location. George did some marketing of this turquoise even traveling back east but could find no real interest in it. His son Charles Schmidthlein and a partner Johnnie Francis filed claim on it. They called the Claim The Fox lode Claim. Charles and his partner worked the mine for over a year and then sold it in 1915 to William R Mcgaw. The price that he reportedly paid the mine for was $300,000. This made this mine a large venture and was developed. William opened the mine with a large open cut and then another large cut. He hired a crew of miners and production was good. William died and a relative of his took over. Dowell Ward acquired the mine in the 1940’s and brought this mine into the present day He acquired what were known as the old Cortez claims. Inside of these claims he discovered several veins that had different colors and gave them each names to give them each there own identity. The names that were in these old Cortez claims are the Fox, The White Horse ,The Green Tree and the Smith. Interesting note: Smith is the last name of McGaw’s relative that took over the mine after his death. The Fox mine has also been called the Cortez mine as it is near Cortez, Nevada. This mine was one of the bigger independent mines in Nevada and probably has produced more turquoise than any other mine in Nevada up till now. It is even said it produced more than all the other Nevada turquoise mines put together. The production was reportedly put at least at 500,000 pounds. This is another turquoise mine that was mined by the Indians for several centuries. This mine produced a lot of nuggets, some of them were very large. The mine also produced vein material. Most turquoise from this mine was very hard but of poor color. The better stone from this mine was very beautiful; mostly shades of green and turquoise colors. There was a very unique color that this mine produced that was an almost translucent Aqua color ; very vibrant. And then this would then blend into the other turquoise shades. This mine has not seen much production in many years. This mine was a large producer for most of the last century and during the turquoise boom of the 1970?s. Dowell Ward was the owner of the mine during this boom and has remained in his family since he passed on. Dowell was one of the early turquoise pioneers of the 1900?s and was involved in several turquoise mines. He associated with a small handful of turquoise miners that were responsible for most of the good and well-known mines in Nevada. They had a close friendship that they worked together with. From the research I have done most of the independent turquoise mines were owned by loners, very private and hard to find information about. Dowell was well known and respected. At present the mine is still in his family and is held by his widow. The mine is still in production today, But on a very limited level.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Green Tree Turquoise Mine : The original: Here is another of the many turquoise mines from Nevada. From the research that I have done there were 3 Green Tree Turquoise mines. One was in the Fox mine; another was in the Candelaria hills In Esmeralda County, and then this mine which is located about 10 miles northeast of Austin, Nevada. This Green Tree mine is located about one mile north of the McGuinness Mine. I would call this the original Green Tree Mine. I think it out dates the other two mines by several decades. Joe Norman and Rudolph Rundberg first discovered this mine in 1937. They owned it very briefly and sold it to Walter Godber . Here is a name that you should recognize as the owner of the Godber mine. This mine was later staked and named the Cold day Mine. I would assume it was a cold day in Nevada when they staked it. Austin area can get very cold. And snows a lot in the winter. Depending if this mine was high in the mountains would make it very unassesable for a lot of the year. Most names given mines were from a very common source of inspiration. This was a very small mine and the zone that contained the turquoise was only twenty feet wide and about ten foot deep. The fault that contained the turquoise was only about 10 inches wide. The turquoise that came from this deposit was mostly nuggets of good size and quality. This mine did not produce much turquoise over the few years it was being worked. I believe this mine is totally worked out and there is not much remaining out there. The few pounds of this material that I have cut were very hard nuggets with a mostly blue green color with a larger web pattern. Some of the nuggets were of a nice hard good blue but not a vibrant blue. The nuggets also seemed very even in color, without a lot of variance in them. There were not a lot of the different shades and colors that you see with a lot of mines. The web patterns were what I would call a water web pattern. I did not see or hear of any vein material, this was a purely nugget mine. Here is some turquoise from the old turquoise mining days of the last century that will never be again. Very limited and scarce material I have only come across a little during my 35 years in the turquoise business.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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Hatchita turquoise: This is a mine that is in New Mexico, just outside Silver City. This was very large silver producing area and home to a very large open pit copper mining area. New Mexico does not have much turquoise; the deposits here are very small. I have not come across very much turquoise from New Mexico in my thirty years living in Albuquerque and in the turquoise business. I would spend many weekends looking for turquoise in my state and only found one deposit. This material came from a man that I had dealt with his Nephews for many years. The Quinns. Bozo Quinn had this deposit for a short while back in the 1990’s, and I ran into him in Tucson and was able to acquire a stash of this. I have learned since that He passed away. Seems like that is what happened to most of the old timer’s that I dealt with. At that time green was not very popular even though I liked it. I do not have much of this material, and do not know the present mining condition of this mine. I consider this material very limited and rare. I do remember meeting a man once at the flea Market in Albuquerque that had some what he claimed was Hatchita material. I can still see in my minds eye that material. He had many cabs cut from it . It was what we call saw rock which is the turquoise vein running in the host rock. His material was a very nice dark chocolate brown with the turquoise veins running across the cabs . At the time I was not into this look as well as the rest of the market. Today this is a very popular look. I heard that this deposit was blasted off the side of the mountain with dynamite and was destroyed. But that is the rumors within this business and I have never visited this site myself. I would say that it is truth as I heard it from several sources. I still hear rumors of material coming from this area but have seen none myself. The huge mines rough is very rare today and from a very small mining area this material is almost a never find. I have only come across New Mexico turquoise a few times myself and I have lived in New Mexico most of my life.copyright@2007 Jim Saunders
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