There are many semi-precious stone that are used in the creating of unique pieces of handcrafted jewellery but one of the most popular and beautiful of these is the natural stone Turquoise. Earrings, bracelets, pendants, rings, necklaces and sets of jewellery can all been seen designed around this stunning blue/green stone.
The semi-precious stone is a secondary mineral and these means that it is a mineral that has gone through many chemical changes over hundreds of years and these chemical changes makes these minerals take on new forms. You will find deposits of Turquoise slowly building up in minerals like copper and this is as the acidic water passes through the copper and other such minerals. This is why many Turquoise deposits are found in other mines and deposits of this beautiful blue semi-precious stone are often found when mining for other semi-precious stones. The most popular places to find this stone are in dry mines where weathering can form cavities for this stone to build up.
China is the country that today provides us with the largest quantity of Turquoise but when purchasing it you have to be careful as the grades and colours will vary depending from which mine it comes from and lots of the Chinese Turquoise is very soft. This is why you will find that this semi-precious stone coming from China has to be stabilized before it can be used in jewellery making as the stone needs to be hard to produce beads and pendants. China is the only country where the bright green coloured Turquoise can be found.
Stabilized Turquoise is very affordable and this is one of the reasons it can be seen set into many unique handcrafted jewellery designs. It is widely used in fashion pieces and can be seen being worn by all the famous celebrities and I am sure that every jeweller has at least one piece of unique handcrafted jewellery in their collection of individually made necklaces, rings, bracelets and jewellery sets that contain this stunning semi-precious stone.
The Sinai was one of the first places this stone was known to have been found and evidence of its use in the making of semi-precious handcrafted jewellery can be seen all the way back to the ancient Egyptians where Turquoise jewellery designs have been found in many of the pharaohs tomes. Working in the mines in the Sinai Peninsula was very dangerous because there were many flash floods and the heat in these mines was tremendous. Because of the abundance of this stone in the area it used to be known as the Country of Turquoise, today there are far fewer mines as the stone is becoming scarcer.
For over 2,000 years Iran (formally known as Persia) has produced some of the world’s finest Turquoise and if there was such a thing as a perfect Turquoise bead then this is where it would be found. The semi-precious stone that is found in this area and it is a stunning vivid blue colour that cannot be found anywhere else in the world except from some mines in the U.S.A. where Turquoise is sometimes found in copper mines. This stone can be seen in many pieces of traditional Persian handcrafted jewellery and this can be anything from a Turquoise necklace to a pair of Turquoise earrings and the most popular metal for this stone to be set in is silver and you will also find beaded designs where not metal has been used in the design.
There are many pieces of unique and unusual pieces of handcrafted jewellery at jade jewellery UK and all of these have been handcrafted from lots of different semi-precious stones and one of these is Turquoise. Sets of jewellery seen at this store includes earrings and bracelets and many Turquoise necklace seen here have all been designed and handcrafted in the UK.
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