Nevada Turquoise Mines & Turquoise Facts

Marvin Symes' Frog Skin
A small Mine owned by Marvin Symes. It shows unusual and beautifully distinctive Deep Green Coloring with Black/Brown Matrix webbing. Marvin Symes was one of the original miners of the Famous Lander Blue Mine in Lander County. This turquoise is beautiful and had a lot of green Nevada Turquoise. Some of the material kinda looked like old Royston Turquoise that had the blue green fade effect to it. This is pretty hard stuff to find, especially since it kinda looks like Royston, so most of the stuff that is in old collections gets mistaken for Royston Turquoise from Tonopah, Nevada. If you can find this.. it is great stuff.

Mastrada Turquoise Mine
This mine has seen little activity over the years. This is mostly seam and vein material from what I have seen .Is a nice light color with light brown webbing. Almost looks like the dry creek material. Is Hard and takes a great shine. Another of those hard to find and rare stones. I have a stash of this turquoise and hope to make some wonderful silver jewelry and gold jewelry. Absolutely killer turquoise... this is often mistaken for Dry Creek Turquoise from Austin, Nevada.

McGinnis Turquoise Mine
A very small quantity and a fair quality of McGinnis was discovered in 1930 in Nevada. This mine was one of the better known smaller turquoise mines. I have seen some really neat McGinnis lately. A variety of colors. You can find this in many varieties of turquoise jewelry and old pawn jewelry.

Miss Moffet Turquoise Mine
This is an old mine and puts out some of the best colors with tight black or brown spider web matrix. Although This turquoise has not been marketed much, it is some of the finest green turquoise we have seen. This mine also produce a very rare form of turquoise, Psuedomorph Clam Shells, these are prehistoric clam shells that have had parts of the dead clam replaced with turquoise. These clams are very rare and valuable. Look for this stone in high end turquoise jewelry.

These claims are owned by Nevada Turquoise Company. The mine has been pillaged by an unknown person who buried the pits and has left it un mineable at this time.

Miss Moffet Turquoise Jewelry

Monte Cristo Turquoise Mine
The Monte Cristo mine produced a medium blue or blue-green turquoise which has a light to medium brown matrix. A lot of This material needs to be stabilized. More info to be posted at a later date.

Montezuma Turquoise Mine
Montezuma is another of the small Nevada Turquoise mines. Beautiful green and Blue/green turquoise, only small production. Very nice material! Solid, not much matrix, cuts well. A lot of This material needs to be stabilized, but what doesn't need to be stabilized is gorgeous stuff.

New Lander Variscite, Chalcociderite and Turquoise
The New Lander turquoise is very beautiful! Most of This material looks like Lander Blue only it is green, orange, and yellow, mostly green. It appears to be varasite or chalcociderite rather then turquoise but is marketed as turquoise, it has the beautiful clarity and depth of varascite It is being mine across the valley from the Old Lander Blue Mine.

Nevada Blue / Nevada Persian Blue
The Nevada Blue Mine produces a beautiful blue turquoise similar to Persian blue turquoise, ranging from light blue to dark blue. A lot of This material is straight blue or has little matrix. Some high-grade has a fine spider web matrix with dark brown colored matrix. This, as with most turquoise mines from Nevada is a little ma and pa operation... and quite frankly anything blue and from Nevada could have been sold in the pas with this name attached to it. This is a factor that makes it hard to find TRUE Nevada Blue Turquoise.

Northern Lights, Nevada
Northern Lights Turquoise mine produced a real nice medium to dark blue turquoise, some had a red spider web matrix, some was a dark, almost "military green" color. This mine is located beside the Carico mine about 80 miles north of Austin , in Lander County, Nevada. Lander County has produced some of the best turquoise in the world. This mine is currently owned by Brian mason from crescent valley, and is currently not being mine.

Orvil Jack Turquoise Mine
Orvil Jack a who was NOT a one armed miner discovered and developed the mine in northern Nevada that produces the turquoise that bears his name. The mining claims where the deposit is located is called the Blue Ridge in Crescent Valley. Original Orvil only sought out blue turquoise, and at This time, I have heard, he would have his helpers simply discard the greed turquoise in search of blue. The rare yellow-green color of the turquoise (Faustite and Varasite) comes from the zinc content. Mr. Jack is now deceased, but his daughter Grace continues to manage the mine. Only a small amount is now being produced, and the turquoise is considered very collectible due to its rare color and scarcity.

Once you see this in some jewelry made with sugilite and opal... it will be one of your favorites. This stunning color lends itself well to gold turquoise jewelry.

Orvil Jack - The Big Story

Orvil Jack Turquoise Jewelry

Picture Coming Soon!

Paiute Turquoise Mine
The Pauite turquoise mine shares a mountain with the Godber/Burnham/Drycreek mine in central Nevada. While claims at the Pauite site date back to 1974, the mine has been actively productive since 1992. The Pauite mine produces limited quantities of high-grade spider-web turquoise. It has a wide graduation of blue tone, from light to dark, with web or matrix in colors of black, orange, brown, and red. It is hard turquoise and some of the finest we have ever seen. Recently the miner (Tony Cotner) let us view some samples of his AAA+ high-grade, and it was breath taking, I would have to say it rivals Lander Blue.

Papoose Turquoise Mine
Papoose is one of Nevada's well-known smaller Turquoise mines. This mine is located in the western part of Nevada and produced a small amount of beautiful blue green turquoise with a brownish matrix. This turquoise has been featured in many old pawn turquoise jewelry pieces.

Picture Coming Soon!

Pirate #3
Beautiful Green Nevada Turquoise. This mine was actually a Gold Mine and was used as a front to sell Miss Moffet turquoise. Interesting store actually, the man selling this was stealing it from the Miss Moffet claim and purchased the old Pirate #3 mine to cover his activity, but he was actually a much better cutter then the owner of the other mine and thus high graded the heck out of the Miss Moffet and came up with this wonderful look now known as Pirate #3. This mine is in Esmeralda County outside of the town of Mina, in the Candelaria hills. This is a mine that goes back in history almost 100 years.

Pixie Turquoise Mine
The Pixie turquoise mine is in the Crescent Valley area of Nevada, near the Fox, Orville Jack, and Carico Lake mines. All these mines yield a green turquoise as well as other colors. The Pixie mine hasn't been worked until recently, sitting untouched for twenty years. Pixie turquoise is yellow to mossy green and also occurs in some blues. A gold mining company owns the claim to these mines, and eventually they will all be swallowed up by the gold mining operation, therefore, Pixie turquoise is quite collectible. The Original PIXIE MINE was mine by Doc Ingersol and another friend in the Bullion District of Lander County near the Indian creek in the Cresent Valley, Nevada area . The mine produced a very small Quantity of This Prize Winning Turquoise.

Wonderful gold and silver jewelry can be made with Pixie, we especially like it when combine with natural purple sugilite.