Old Town Scottsdale · A Buyer’s Guide
There’s a warning every longtime collector gives a first-time buyer, and it’s blunt: a great deal of what’s sold as “turquoise” in tourist corridors — in Arizona and everywhere else — is dyed howlite, magnesite, or plastic resin. It’s why travelers planning a Scottsdale trip keep asking the same nervous question online: how do I know it’s real? Fair question. This page is our answer. Below: how the trade actually grades turquoise, the mines whose names matter, five checks you can run in any store, the federal law that protects you, and the questions an honest dealer should welcome — ours included. Our family has kept a gallery on Main Street since the 1990s. Consider this what we’d tell a friend before they went shopping.
The Honesty Ladder
“Real” isn’t a yes-or-no answer in this trade. It’s a ladder, and every rung has a fair price. Trouble only starts when a seller describes one rung and charges for another.
Mined, cut, polished, set — nothing else done to it. Only a small share of the world’s turquoise is hard enough to go straight from the ground to a bezel, which is why natural stone commands the top of the market. A dealer should say the word “natural” plainly, and be willing to put it on the receipt.
Genuine turquoise hardened with clear resin so softer stone can be cut, worn daily, and hold its color for a lifetime. Most turquoise sold today is stabilized, and there is no shame in it — it makes honest stone affordable. It simply must be disclosed, and priced below comparable natural stone.
Genuine stone whose color has been deepened or altered. Still turquoise, still sellable — at a price that says so. This is where disclosure starts separating galleries from gift shops.
Turquoise powder bound into resin blocks — or no turquoise at all: howlite or magnesite dyed sky blue, or simple molded plastic. Whatever the tag claims, nothing on this rung is a turquoise stone.
Provenance
Provenance is the other half of authenticity. Fine turquoise carries the name of the mine that produced it the way wine carries the vineyard, and the name changes the value — sometimes dramatically. A dealer who buys close to the source can tell you exactly where a stone was dug; a dealer who can’t name the mine is telling you something too. We stock our own cases mine-direct, so these are the names you’ll hear at our counter and around Old Town.
The famous one: clear, even sky blue with little to no matrix. The mine ceased turquoise production in August 2012 to focus on copper, so every genuine Sleeping Beauty stone on the market today was cut from existing stock — a finite and steadily more collectible supply.
One of the oldest and most productive turquoise mines in America — and still producing. Classic bright blue, typically veined with matrix. If your mental image of turquoise has webbing in it, you’re probably picturing Kingman.
Born of Arizona’s copper-mining era: deep “Bisbee blue” set off by a chocolate-brown matrix. The mine is long closed, and genuine Bisbee ranks among the most collectible American turquoise — priced accordingly wherever it honestly appears.
An active Nevada classic, loved for color that ranges from blue into green. Royston rewards buyers who like a stone with some character to it rather than a uniform hue.
The distinctive one: Carico Lake’s signature is a lime green unlike anything else in the case. Once you’ve seen it, you’ll spot it across a room — a favorite of buyers who want turquoise nobody else at the dinner table is wearing.
Here’s the honest part: White Buffalo is not turquoise. It’s a calcite-based stone without the copper that gives turquoise its color, discovered by the Otteson family near Tonopah in 1993, and prized for its striking white-with-black-matrix look. Any store selling it as “white turquoise” without explaining this — keep walking. We carry it, we love it, and we label it for exactly what it is.
You’ll find stones from these mines throughout our turquoise collection, and we’re building a deeper page on each — starting with Sleeping Beauty and Royston.
On the Shop Floor
No loupe, no chemistry set, nothing destructive. These five take about a minute together and will filter out the vast majority of fakes — in our store or anyone else’s.
Real turquoise varies — subtly within a single stone, plainly across a strand. A row of beads in perfectly uniform, perfectly bright blue, every one identical, is the classic signature of dyed howlite. Nature doesn’t do uniform.
Turn the piece in good light and study the matrix lines and any small cracks. Dye settles where it can hide: darker color pooled in the crevices of an otherwise even stone is a tell that the color came from a vat, not the ground.
Handmade Native American jewelry is typically bezel-set — a band of silver worked around the stone by hand. Look for a “sterling” or “.925” stamp and an artist’s hallmark on the back. A stone glued into a cast base with no markings is telling its own story.
Real stone is dense and cool to the touch; plastic is light and warms quickly in your fingers. Admittedly subjective — which is why this is one check of five, not a verdict on its own.
Genuine handmade pieces carry the cost of real stone and hours of hand silverwork — as a rule of thumb, a floor of roughly a hundred dollars, climbing well beyond it for substantial work. A $15 “genuine turquoise squash blossom” is answering its own question.
Online guides also describe scratch and acetone tests. They work — by damaging the piece — so they belong at home on something you already own, never on a shop floor. For the deeper version of all five checks, see our full guide to telling real turquoise from fake.
Your Protection
Buyers of Native American art have a federal law standing behind them. The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 makes it illegal to sell — or even display for sale — any product in a way that falsely suggests it was made by a Native American. The penalties have teeth: for a first offense, an individual faces fines up to $250,000 and five years in prison, and a business can be fined up to $1,000,000. The law is enforced by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board at the U.S. Department of the Interior, and was strengthened by amendment in 2010.
The practical translation for a shopper: ask who made the piece — the artist’s name and tribal affiliation. A legitimate dealer answers on the spot, because artist attribution isn’t a secret in this trade; it’s the signature on the work and the mark of authenticity itself. And a legitimate dealer will put it in writing on your receipt.
The Checklist
Carry these into every store you visit — a phone screenshot works fine. None of them is rude. All of them are revealing.
A trustworthy shop enjoys these questions; they’re a chance to talk about the work. Ask them anywhere in town — and please, ask them at our counter.
Old Town Scottsdale
Here is the thing no single store’s ad will tell you: Old Town’s real advantage for a turquoise buyer is concentration. Several serious, specialized dealers sit within a few blocks of each other, and competition between specialists two doors apart keeps everyone honest — in a way no airport kiosk or mall counter ever has to be. Serious buyers visit several shops. We’d rather you did.
That’s us — on Main Street since the 1990s, family owned and operated since 2006. We buy stones mine-direct from Sleeping Beauty, Kingman, Royston, Bisbee and Carico Lake, and carry work by named artists including Calvin Begay, Effie Calavaza and Jerry Cowboy. In the cases: women’s and men’s rings, cuffs, earrings, pendants, squash blossom necklaces, an Old Pawn case, White Buffalo, and hand-carved kachina dolls — plus a working bench for sizing and repair, walk-ins welcome.
Family-owned for more than forty years, with handmade work by Navajo, Hopi and Zuni artists. A serious, established shop one street over — well worth a stop on the same walk.
Navajo, Hopi and Zuni turquoise jewelry, open seven days. Collectors will recognize the names in their cases; casual buyers get the same straight answers.
On Main Street since 1969, with a natural-turquoise-only policy and membership in ATADA, the tribal-art dealers’ association with strict authenticity standards — a standard we respect and a good stop for collectors focused on the top rung of the ladder.
A Native-owned marketplace where you buy directly from artisans of Native descent — a different and worthwhile way to shop, and a fine complement to the galleries.
Making a full day of it? Our insider’s guide to shopping Old Town covers the districts, the souvenirs worth carrying home, and the weekly rhythm of ArtWalk and the farmers market.
The Collector’s Case
One more case is worth understanding before you shop. “Old Pawn” — sometimes “dead pawn” — refers to jewelry that was left as security at reservation-era trading posts and never redeemed. These were working pieces, made to be worn by their makers and their families rather than made for sale, and that is precisely why collectors prize them: an Old Pawn bracelet is a direct, datable artifact of its era.
Judging age is craft knowledge — the construction methods, the character of the silver, the way the stone was cut and set all speak to a trained eye. It’s the part of the trade where experience matters most, and where you should expect a dealer to explain why a piece is called old, not just charge you for the word. We keep an Old Pawn case in the gallery and will gladly walk you through what makes each piece what it is; if the history hooks you, our guide to what Old Pawn jewelry really means goes deeper.
Straight Answers
Honestly — not necessarily cheaper. Better. What Arizona offers is selection and provenance: you’re buying close to the source, from dealers who can name the mine and the artist, at prices that reflect what a piece actually is. The bargain isn’t a lower tag; it’s knowing exactly what you’re paying for.
It isn’t turquoise. White Buffalo is a calcite-based stone without the copper that colors true turquoise, discovered by the Otteson family near Tonopah, Nevada in 1993. It’s striking and collectible in its own right — white with black matrix — and an honest dealer will tell you exactly that before you buy. See our White Buffalo collection.
No. Stabilized turquoise is genuine turquoise, hardened with resin so softer stone can be cut, worn daily, and keep its color. It should be disclosed and priced below comparable natural stone — and at most reputable shops it’s the majority of what’s in the case. Undisclosed is the problem; stabilized is not.
There’s no single number, but genuine handmade pieces carry the cost of real stone and hours of hand silverwork — roughly a hundred dollars as a floor, with substantial artist-made and collector pieces running from several hundred into the thousands. Dramatically cheaper “genuine handmade turquoise” deserves the five checks above.
Yes. The mine stopped producing turquoise in August 2012, but stones cut from existing stock are still on the market — that finite supply is exactly why Sleeping Beauty holds and gains value. We stock it in the turquoise collection, and we’ll tell you which pieces carry it.
The Real Test
Photographs — ours included — only get you so far. Turquoise is a stone you judge in hand: the weight, the coolness, the matrix under a bright light. Bring your questions, bring the checklist, and put our own cases to the test. Browse first, or just come say hello.
7254 E Main St, Suite 101, Old Town Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Open 7 days a week, 10:00 am – 6:30 pm
(480) 425-9944 · Directions & parking · Plan your visit