Gems of The Southwest
Gems used in Southwestern art are usually what you may be familiar with from Native American jewelry. Turquoise would be the most familiar one of course. However, as good turquoise becomes more hard to find and expensive artists have been forced to use other materials.
Other materials also allow artists to get away from the sterotypical creations and develop their own vision. In additon, some of the other materials, such as coral, were traded from Mexico during the bueble times, so they are at least as traditional as turquoise.
Many of the variations, such as malachite, are also copper based and found in the same deposits as turquoise.
Now that power tools are available to work the stones and they can be polished with diamond grit, stones that were impossible to work with hand tools become valuable.
You can learn more about the subject from books and other items for sale on Ebay. The list below shows some of the current auctions. Clicking on one of the links will take you directly to that auction.
We are working on a Gem Trails website where we hope to update information from Gem Trails of New Mexico and Gem Trains of Arizona with recent site pictures and maps.