(quick note: 25% off sale in my DVHdesigns Etsy store through the night of Sunday the 12th. Coupon code LEOFEST2012 thanks!)
As many of you know, since I've posted some work in this stone before, Sonora Sunrise is one of my favorite materials to work with! It only showed up on the market about 5 years ago from a small claim in Mexico and I've seen the price range from $40 to $160 a pound. Most of the material does NOT have such vibrant colors and there is no certainty of how much of the material is still there. When it's gone, it's gone! In 35 years of cutting stones, I can honestly say that it's one of my favorite stones and that I have never seen anything that has such a lovely contrast of colors. The blue-green is chrysocolla, the orange-red is cuprite, and the black is tenorite. I especially love when I can find a piece that has a nice vein of the cuprite running between nice veins of chrysocolla. The black tenorite often works as an amazing kind of framing and accent color to the coolness of the turquoise blue colors and the warmth of the orange cuprite.
Recently I got a good price on this piece of rough in an eBay auction from a dealer I know well. The weight was 0.9 pounds, or 410 grams....
from one view, and see how different the patterning is on the other side....
from this one chunk, I cut the 22 stones below. 5 large focal beads and then a nice mix of smaller focal beads and creative cabs. The 410 gram chunk above, once cut up entirely, yielded 150 grams of stones, so about 65% of the material got ground up into dust during the sawing and shaping! And I'm careful to make interesting shapes that MAXIMIZE the amount of stone I use! 2/3 waste of the rough rock is the price I pay for not making everything right angles and flat faces, but a slightly domed stone with curves is so much more pleasing than flat faced, flat edged, triangles and rectangles, don't you agree?
On a number of pieces I left a partial natural face of the stone. I did that primarily because I think it's cool, but is also helps to show that this material is natural and has been untreated. A lot of people mistake this rare, natural, gemstone material for "turquoise & red coral together" which is just CRAZY! 90% or more of the turquoise in the world has been treated and stabilized, if not completely reconstituted and dyed. When stone are stabilized in the rough state, prior to cutting, it leaves a resiny-plastic like coating on the surface that can't be removed, because it permeates the stone. So my natural faces are a part of promoting the naturalness of this rarity!
6 of these pieces have already gone to a collector in Europe and I'm showing the others to a local gem dealer on Monday or Tuesday. The 16 I have are all in my Etsy store.
And finally a word on fakes and simulants of this stone. A quick search on eBay shows 584 items listed under Sonora Sunrise. Of these, about 180 are the real McCoy and they make up 98% of the items priced over $5. Of the remaining 400 plus items under $5, ALL of them are fake, dyed, stabilized, mass produced in China fakes. Take a look for yourself. For semi-precious stones like this, looking at a large batch on eBay is a good way to see the diversity of the material, compare prices, and see what the fakes clearly look like! Here's a prime example of a fake "sonora sunrise" that I pulled from a listing on eBay....
and I pulled this image from an eBay listing a while ago. I don't see anything like it currently listed. To my experienced eye, I think it should be clear to everyone that this is definitely reconstituted, dyed, stabilized material. It's a better fake than the one above, but still clearly a fake, although one that could give pause to a person who has not seen much of the real material, or is unfamiliar with all the faked turquoise out there.
One last thing people. There are over 700 listings on eBay in loose beads for "orange turquoise". There's no such thing as orange turquoise. Nor purple. Nor emerald green. Nor white. Even a lot of the natural stones that look like turquoise aren't necessarily turquoise. The chrysocolla in the Sonora Sunrise is often mistaken for turquoise.
Anyhow, that's if for now. I'm currently working on more fossil walrus and fossil mammoth ivory (available ONLY in my Etsy store or through direct sales, NOT on eBay) and some more fabulous feldspars, along with a nice crystal jelly opal bead. I've got a lot of cutting to do to get caught up on bills but I head out on a 5 day vacation next Wednesday!
Have a great weekend and thanks for letting me share.
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