About Turquoise Composite Stones

I've had some questions about the beautiful composite stones. They are mined in Nevada.

White Buffalo Kingman Composite

The composite is made by the same family that mines the Kingman turquoise. They mix the White Buffalo with some blue Kingman turquoise, add the bronze matrix and then compress it into bricks as seen below. Each brick is approximately 4.75” x 2.5” x 2.25”

The White Buffalo stone is not turquoise even though sometimes you will see it misrepresented as such. It is actually a stone made of dolomite and calcite.

Purple Mohave Turquoise composite is a composite made up of Blue Kingman turquoise, Purple Mohave Turquoise and bronze.

The only source for true Purple Mojave Turquoise is the Kingman Mine in Arizona. This type of turquoise starts out as blue Kingman turquoise, is dyed purple and then goes through a bronze fusion process that creates a bronze color to the matrix. It is then formed, polished and cut. The Kingman Turquoise Mine is the only mine authorized to process the turquoise this way. =Sadly, there are a lot of imitation stones floating around out there and is one reason I buy my stones only from trusted lapidaries here in the US. Jeff Hansen from Stone Shapers Designs is one such lapidary. Jeff is a man of integrity as well as an expert stonecutter/lapidary.