THIS LISTING IS ONLY FOR A PAIR OF EARRINGS!
Oval 1⅛” x ½”
The silver in these earrings has been through fire. Each hand-reticulated disc visible above the stone like a half moon caught mid-rise was heated to the precise threshold where the surface began to move, producing the deeply cratered, lava-like texture that no tool can replicate and no two pieces share. The result is a backing plate of extraordinary surface complexity oxidized silver that reads differently in every light, at every angle, against every surface it catches.
In front of it, a matched oval Kingman turquoise cabochon measuring 1⅛” x ½” sits in a clean polished bezel vivid aqua-teal with fine golden matrix lines that move through the stone in quiet, confident sweeps. The smooth bezel and saturated stone provide a deliberate counterpoint to the wild silver above stillness meeting movement, color meeting texture, the ancient material of the mine against the transformed material of the forge.
Sterling shepherd hooks complete the earrings with easy natural movement. Refined in scale, complex in craft the kind of earring that rewards every look you give it.
Details:
Stone: Kingman Turquoise · Origin: Arizona · Matrix: Turquoise & Tans · Metal: Custom Sterling Silver · Earring Setting: 1⅛” x ½” · One of a Kind with Makers Mark
Made in Taos by a Taosena.
Some Jewelry is made. Some is found. At Fire & Stone, it's both.
Kingman Turquoise Earrings
The Kingman mine sits in Mineral Park, Mohave County in northwestern Arizona one of the oldest and most storied turquoise operations in North America. Archaeological evidence places turquoise mining at Kingman as far back as 1000 AD, when Ancestral Puebloan and Mojave peoples worked the deposit long before European contact. The mine has been in continuous or near-continuous production ever since, making it one of the longest-running turquoise sources on the continent.
What distinguishes Kingman turquoise is the exceptional range and consistency of its color a vivid, saturated blue that collectors and silversmiths have prized for generations. Kingman produces some of the bluest turquoise in the world, ranging from bright robin’s egg and sky blue to deeper Persian blue, often with a distinctive black, brown, or silver matrix that provides striking contrast against the stone’s saturated ground. The water web Kingman where fine silver and black matrix forms a delicate web across the surface of the stone is among the most coveted turquoise formations anywhere, sought by serious collectors and commanding significant premiums over unmarked material.
Kingman turquoise is natural and genuine the mine produces both stabilized material for the commercial market and high grade natural stones for collectors and artisan jewelers who insist on untreated material. The distinction matters. Natural Kingman holds its color without treatment, a testament to the mineral stability of the deposit and the quality of the stone coming out of the ground.
The Mineral Park mine has passed through several ownership periods over the decades and production has been inconsistent periods of active mining followed by closure, each reopening producing new material of sometimes dramatically different character. What comes out of Kingman today is not guaranteed to look like what came out twenty years ago. Each period of production has its own signature. This stone carries the Kingman name because it earned it in the ground, in the color, and in the hands of a Taoseña who knows the difference.
