If cold December gave you birth, The month of snow, ice and mirth, Place on you hand Turquoise blue, Success will bless you if you do. Turquoise is a mineral prized for its perfection of color, when of finest quality possesses ablue tone, soft and pleasing, like the color of clear sky. So unique is this color that it becomes difficult to find anything in nature which to compare it, and hence turqouise blue has come to a standard of comparison itself. From the dawn of civilization down to the present it hs always been held in high esteem due to its intrinsic worth and also upon its mystic properties and religious significance that it is supposed to possess.

It was once the most highly prized possession of the Navaho Indians and of the Arab Bedouins; and the Tibetan and Mongolian natives esteem this gem no less than do the Hopi and Zuni pueblo dwellers. The tombs of the earliest Egyptian kings have yielded jewelry of considerable beauty wrought of gold and inlaid with turquoises from the Sinai Penisula. The inhabitants of Central Asia have long valued the turquoise have been lavish in its use, while the Persians and neighboring races of western Asia have from time immemorial drawn upon the famous Nishapur deposits near the Caspian Sea. Productive deposits are found in the United States and Asia, notably Nishapur in Persia, long the most important locality in the world. Turqoise is almost always opaque, with one known locality in the world in Lynch Virginia producing a crystalline form albeit microscopic specimens. Turqouise is used in jewelry, made into carvings, beads and decorative pieces. The best material comes from Iran. Other sources include the Kingman mine in Arizona and a number of mines in Nevada. New Mexico, China, Tibet, Chile, Russia and Australia also produces different varieties in hues and patterns. Spiderweb turqouise is veined with black marix and is very popular with connoiseurs and collectors alike.

The plain variety are also enormously used in high quality jewelry. Most of the turqouise used in lower priced silver and fashion jewelry has been treated with a stablizer to improve durabilty, shine and color stabilty. Of course, the natural denser and less porous material are more valuable and takes a better polish. The price variance between a natural and a treated piece can differ more than 20 to 30 folds. In olden times, the best pieces were offered to the Kings and Queens and royalties signifying rank and power.