[Jewelry making - Article 00827] - Re: [Orchid] [Source] 'Persian' turquiose beads

[Peter W . Rowe]

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>     He said, "I've never heard of Sleeping Beauty--it's Persian." I
>     asked if he had any idea how the supplier had obtained this
>     turquoise and his answer, basically, was "I really can't share that
>     information, modom." 

Lisa,

    that sounds like pretentiousness trying to cover up for ignorance,
    not intentional fraud. 

    Even in the part of California within shouting distance of GIA;'s
    original offices, or their new ones, it's very easy to find jewelry
    store sales people with absolutely no formal or even informal
    training of any sort, who's slim knowledge of gemology comes entirely
    from what they've heard or been told, often from/by other equally
    uniformed people just in their own store, or perhaps by the folks
    from whom they bought the merchandise (who, of course, are also often
    just salespeople without all that much training either).  pretty
    sad, but still common enough. 

    And the thing is, often such people are convinced that their
    misinformation is somehow more reliable than that heard from those
    school indoctrinated self important folks who call themselves
    gemologists, who've clearly, in their view, not got enough actual
    experience in the field to justify telling THEM anything...  Just
    wait till those silly beginners, with just a bit of book learnin in
    them, have been around the business a while and then, perhaps
    they'll know the real story... 

    Don't laugh.  i've actually heard pretty much this exact tale not so
    long ago from one such sales person, who thought I was just an
    ordinary customer. Didn't know I was  goldsmith and a G.G.... 

    Apparently the sales person was unaware that the term "persian" is
    more often used to describe a quality of turqoise, than an actual
    source location.  Were it actually "persian", that would mean from
    Persia, which of course we now know as the country of Iran.  When was
    the last time you heard of turqoise that had any time recently been
    obtained from Iran?  There are significant quantities of the finest
    U.S. sourced turqoise that would easily qualify for the "persion"
    quality descriptor, which indicates a very fine quality characterized
    by a depth/intensity of color, freedom from matrix, and a high degree
    of density/solidity, (as opposed to the more porous samples so often
    seen). The finest Sleeping Beauty mined material might easily be
    "Persian" quality... 

Peter Rowe

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