The Mines
The Ajax Mine is located in Esmeralda County, Nevada. While the Ajax Mine has been known for its unique shades of green turquoise, the ground it occupies has produced almost every color of blue and green turquoise and most matrix patterns, from clear to spiderweb. The mine actually consists of numerous workings that produce a variety of colors and patterns from each "hole". Over the decades, the main turquoise producing area of the Ajax has gone by different names as the claims changed hands...from Oriental Blue during the days of Carl Reik and Walter Godber in the 1930's, to Blue Gem later on. Today we are still able to produce a small amount of both blue and green (and multi-color!) natural turquoise from the Ajax Mine, which is now considered to be one of the classic turquoise mines of the southwest.
The historic Aztec Mine is located in the Royston Mining District of Esmeralda and Nye Counties, Nevada. The Aztec name for these claims goes as far back as 1903. Lee Hand mined this area back in the 1930's, and our claims cover much of his original workings. Aztec produces some of the classic looks of the Royston district with it's baby blues and wild greens often accented with blonde and red webbing and matrix. The mine also produces very light blue, almost white nuggets that are hard and take a super bright polish...a rare occurrence in the turquoise world! We own and operate this mine with Philip Chambless, who has owned claims in the Royston area for over 20 years now!
The Black Web Gem Mine is a tiny turquoise mine located in Esmeralda County, Nevada. Production is very very small, but the stones this mine produces are amazing. The range of colors from this mine go from lovely sky blues to some of the bluest blues and darkest black webbing you'll find anywhere, and it's all natural turquoise! This wonderful material has been featured in Joe Dan Lowry's book 'Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone', both in the English language and in Japanese. It has also been featured as one of the classic, high-grade Nevada mines in the Japanese magazine: 'Lightning', Vol. 199. We work this mine with our partner, Philip Chambless, so you know you're getting this stone straight from the source!
The Black Widow Mine is in the Candelaria Mining District of Esmeralda County, Nevada. This small, very hard rock mine has produced hard turquoise ranging from light to dark blue, some with waterweb or spiderweb matrix. The turquoise the mine produces is very diverse, including an almost white, very hard turquoise with delicate light blue webbing that we call "White Cloud" turquoise. The mine was worked in the early 1900's by Lige Harris, and later in the 1970's up through the early 2000's by the McGinnis family and others. Today, we are co-owners of the mine with turquoise miner, historian, and jeweler, Philip Chambless. The name "Black Widow" was given to this mine because of the intense black spiderweb matrix that is found in some of its highest grade stones.
The historic Blue Boy claims in Esmeralda County, Nevada were worked in the early 1900’s by the Los Angeles Gem Company and later in the 1940’s by John and Grace Callahan, two of the last year-round residents of the old ghost town of Columbus, NV. In the late 1800’s Columbus boasted a population of around 4,000 brave souls who worked various silver prospects in the area. Today, very little of the town remains. The wood structures were burned as a reprieve from the high desert’s brutal wind and cold. Our claim is well known for its hard, colorful variscite ranging from solid emerald green to striking multi-color spiderweb patterns to pure black…and yes, we have worked through some pretty chilly days to bring the warmth of this beauty to you!
The Carmelita Mine is located in the historic Royston/Crow Springs Mining District of Esmeralda and Nye Counties, Nevada. This mine produces some of the hardest, most colorful, high-grade turquoise in the entire district. The Carmelita Mine, named by Philip Chambless, is a part of the historic 1908 Oscar Wehrand Royal Blue-Aztec consolidated claim group. Today, we own and operate this mine with Philip, so you know you're getting this stone direct from the source!
The Dyer Blue mine is a small turquoise mine located near the town of Dyer, in Esmeralda County, Nevada. Once known as the Lovely mine in the 1970's due to its lovely blue color, this mine was worked sporadically into the early 1980's. After almost three decades of lying idle, the Dyer Blue mine is once again producing limited quantities of pure gem blue as well as dark blue to greenish blue stones with stunning reddish brown spiderweb and patterned matrix. The mine and its beautiful diversity of looks and colors of turquoise is featured in the 2018 Updated Edition of Joe Dan Lowry's book, "Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone". The Dyer Blue Mine is quickly becoming a Nevada turquoise classic!
The Firefly Mine is located in Esmeralda County, Nevada near the Candelaria Mining District. This area is famous for its silver and turquoise. Originally mined for turquoise long ago, this mine was worked very little and then sat abandoned until we recently re-discovered it. When we started working here, we found lovely turquoise and also discovered this amazing vein of variscite with its unique minty greens, yellows, and red webbing. In rare stones there will actually be spots of turquoise inclusions within the variscite! If I show a stone here that has this going on, I will be sure to point it out in the description.
The Neptune Mine is located in Esmeralda County, Nevada. This is one of the first and only (at the time of this writing) woman-team owned and operated variscite/turquoise mines in the country. Emily Otteson and I (Helen) are excited about this wonderful discovery we made! And on this one we get to tell the boys where to dig! ... Well, sometimes on our other mines too lol! They're good at listening to us because they know we're good at finding the gems ;) ... I think you will love the amazing bright greens with bold black matrix and the light, bright and intricate spiderweb stones this mine produces!
Nevada Blue turquoise is a fascinating stone, characterized by wild, bold red and black matrix in bright blue and intense, high-grade spiderweb. There are also other minerals associated with it including opal, rich red-brown limonite, and acicular crystals of either wavelite or selenite…very unique!
The Nevada Blue mine has a long history, first mined in 1901 under the name Pinto/Watts. Our Nevada Blue material was mined by the Hammon family from the late 1960's up into the early 1980's, and for the past 40 years had been part of the collection of Herb and Dottie Lindner. Some of the finest material was mined in the 70's, and Herb purchased most of the mine's production directly from the Hammons during that time. Today, due to extremely difficult access, the Nevada Blue Mine is no longer producing.
Herb was the major source for Nevada Blue cabochons when he was actively cutting, and you’ll see his stone in classic pieces by Charles Loloma and Lee Yazzie, among other great native jewelry artists of the time. We are so excited and thankful to be able to bring this wonderful, rare, and classic Nevada Blue turquoise back into the market!
The historic Northern Lights Mine is located in the Carico Lake Turquoise Mining District near the famous Carico Lake and Red Mountain mines. This mine is known for its electric lime green turquoise, a very rare and sought after color in the turquoise world. The mine also produces beautiful blue stones! We operate this mine in partnership with the Northern Lights’ mine owner, Philip Chambless.
The Ocean Dreams mine is a small turquoise mine located in Mineral County, Nevada. We discovered this mine a few years back, and we are happy to now be producing some amazing stone from this small locality! We named it Ocean Dreams because of the wonderful swirls of color and islands of matrix that remind us of looking down on the worlds oceans from far above. You'll see some very unique turquoise looks coming from this mine!
The Pickhandle Mine is located in Esmeralda County, Nevada. We found this small turquoise deposit in the Spring of 2014. Although there had been no sign of digging in the past, there was an old weathered pick handle laying nearby when we found the vein, and that is how the mine received its name. So far it has produced a limited quantity of hard turquoise ranging from light to dark blue and green with both blonde and limonite matrix. We hope you enjoy our wonderful discovery!
The Poseidon Mine is located in Esmeralda County, Nevada. We operate this mine with our friends and fellow turquoise miners, Tony and Emily Otteson. This mine produces incredible spiderweb nuggets, some up to a full hand size! The largest gem web nugget to date weighs almost 300 grams!! Of course, that one will never be cut. There are other nuggets of a more reasonable cabochon size that we are cutting for you. :) We think you will love the wild and unique spiderweb patterns and colors this mine produces - from deep, dark starry nights to bright greens to a very unique tan color, and even some multi-color webbed stones. It also produces clean, clear minty greens and yellow-greens that are just delicious. Poseidon variscite is truly amazing!
The Prince Mine is located in Mineral County, Nevada near the Candelaria Mining District. This area is famous for its silver and turquoise. Our operation at the Prince mine in 2005 produced large veins and nuggets of minty green variscite, both pure color and with intricate to bold spiderweb patterning. Impressive black, orange, and yellow variscite also comes from this mine. We worked quite deep along the vein and then refilled the hole as part of the reclamation work. As a result, the vein has not been mined since then, and this wonderful gem is only becoming more and more rare.
