Natural Turquoise and gemstone Coral and Gold earrings, created and crafted in Sydney.
The source of the Natural Turquoise is China, from one of the sixteen-odd working Turquoise mines of that country. Turquoise has been a valued gemstone in China for thousands of years, treasured in jewellery and in the carving of exquisite objects. When China was opening up a little in the 1980s and the markets in Shanghai were attracting incredulous Western traders, the quantities of Turquoise jewellery surfacing, mostly in Silver settings, was a goggle. Much of the silverwork was highly intricate, often damaged, but the Turquoise was fine and natural, at a time when the biggest source of the gemstone was the United States where a large part of the Turquoise produced was “enhanced”, the colour made more commercially acceptable, and made fast, so that it did not change.
Natural Turquoise will change colour with time and wear, gradually darkening, and this is the natural quality of Turquoise, one of the two rocks of the gemstone world, and porous; chemicals, such as in perfumes, detergents, sun-cream lotions etc, can damage Turquoise. The best care for Turquoise is keeping it away as much as possible from products containing chemicals, and to give it a regular wipe with a damp cloth.

The Turquoise is new; the Coral beads are old, dating back a half-century at least, from Sth India but originally from the Mediterranean, traded into Sth India in branch form for many centuries, handcut into smallish beads for the lovely Coral strands so favoured in that part of the world.