Hi There,

I saw your piece on fake Turquoise coming out of China. I'm an Australian that's living in China and have seen first hand how bad it is.

In your case they used a coating to cover up the fake which is straight out fraud.

However, I find the whole subject of "stabilized turquoise" from China very interesting. It seems that almost all Turquoise sold for beads and as cabs is now imported from China and is "stabilized"

The Chinese don't have the technology to stabilize the way they did in the U.S. Instead they are basically plastic coated junk Turquoise, much like what you bought. Just replace the epoxy inside with useless junk Turquoise and there you have it. I reckon that U.S suppliers of Turquoise are well aware of just how low the Turquoise is inside, they just choose not to mention it because it's big business. With huge volumes of beads and cabs selling in the U.S better not to mention this fact. The buyers think they are buying Turquoise which is the same all the way through and just injected somehow with resin for toughness. In fact, much of it resembles an M&M lolly.

How often do we hear the term "Stabilized for added Durability" or "Stabilized to hold the color"?

Added durability? Well yes. That junk quality is very soft but if you've ever cracked open real
Turquoise you know it's easily hard enough for daily use. Even though our supplier has always been
good, (and a few are), we regularly crack open some just to be sure.

I'm also interested that you’re buying small rocks for inlay work. From the real mines, rocks are quite
expensive. Wouldn't you be better to buy larger cabs and use them? With the cabs you can see
exactly what you have and they are usually cheaper than many of the rocks. The cutting and polishing
cost in China is almost zero so it doesn't add anything. Seems the thickness has most to do with price
at the moment. Interesting too that most good Turquoise is found close to the surface. The deeper the mine,  the lower the quality. I can only imagine the pace that the Chinese are attacking their mines in Hubei and wonder how long it will last.

Also interesting that in the mine we deal with the guy says that almost all Turquoise sold as Tibetan is
not. Also, that he gets visits regularly from Japanese buyers who take high quality back to Japan and
sell it as American. Surprising as there is a big difference in appearance. However, when they buy real
AAA material the difference is much less.

Anyway, nice to see someone on the ball. I have been appalled at some of the junk I have seen selling
on Ebay as stabilized without a real description of what stabilized means for Chinese Turquoise. We have been asked by many to supply stabilized but I'd rather deal with a mine than a factory. Hell, go pick up a bead string of stabilized Turquoise in the U.S.  JUNK! You can feel your holding a straight plastic coated (and almost always colored) piece of rubbish. I mean the Chinese are well know scam artists but what I see coming from this big U.S wholesalers is not much better than a scam.

Well done !!!

kind regards,
David