Shop by Mine · Old Town Scottsdale
Turquoise is one of the few gems where the ground it came from is half the story. Each of the great American turquoise mines left its own signature in the stone — a color, a matrix, a character no other place repeats — and some of them will never produce another ounce. These are the mines whose stones you’ll find in our cases on Main Street, sourced direct and named on the tag.
Ask where a diamond was mined and most jewelers will shrug. Ask where a turquoise stone was mined and the answer changes what the piece is worth. Turquoise forms where water and copper minerals meet, and every deposit does it a little differently — so the trade has always known its stones by place: the clean sky blue of Sleeping Beauty, the chocolate-veined depths of Bisbee, the improbable green of Carico Lake. A named stone can be weighed against everything else that ever came out of that ground. A nameless one is just a blue rock, priced on hope.
Provenance is also your best protection as a buyer. A dealer who can tell you the mine — and will put it on the receipt alongside the artist’s name and whether the stone is natural or stabilized — is a dealer whose whole inventory can survive that level of scrutiny. It’s the standard we hold ourselves to on every piece in the turquoise collection, and the reason we wrote a plain-English guide to telling real turquoise from fake and to buying authentic turquoise in Scottsdale.
Several of the most famous American mines have already closed. Every genuine stone they produced was out of the ground years ago — which is why the mine name on the tag is not a detail. It’s the pedigree.
Globe, Arizona
Ceased turquoise mining 2012 · FiniteThe most recognizable blue in American turquoise — a clear, even robin’s-egg color with little to no matrix. The mine turned fully to copper in August 2012, so every genuine Sleeping Beauty stone in the world already exists. Supply only tightens from here.
Read the Sleeping Beauty storyKingman, Arizona
Still producingOne of the oldest and most productive turquoise mines in America — and one of the few classics still at work today. Kingman is the classic blue with matrix: lively veining that makes each stone its own small map of the ground it came from.
Shop Kingman in the collectionBisbee, Arizona
Long closed · CollectibleA legacy of Arizona’s copper-mining era: deep, saturated blue crossed by a chocolate-brown matrix that collectors can spot across a room. The mine is long closed, and genuine Bisbee is bought the moment it surfaces — and priced like it.
Hunt Bisbee in the Old Pawn caseNevada
ActiveA Nevada classic that never settled on a single color. Royston runs from blue to green — often within one stone — which is exactly why silversmiths love it: no two cabs match, and the best ones look like weather moving across the desert.
More about RoystonNevada
ActiveThe surprise of the case. Carico Lake’s signature is a distinctive lime green unlike anything else in American turquoise — a color people either walk straight past or cannot leave the store without. There is no in-between, and we respect that.
Shop Carico Lake in the collectionTonopah, Nevada
The honest exception · Not turquoiseBone white, veined in black, dug by the Otteson family on their claims outside Tonopah since 1993 — and, honestly, not turquoise at all. It’s a calcite-based stone, and our tags say so. Anyone selling it as “white turquoise” is telling you something, too.
Read the honest White Buffalo explainerMost turquoise changes hands several times between the ground and a jewelry case, and the story tends to wear off along the way. We source our stones mine-direct wherever we can, which keeps the chain short and the provenance intact — when a tag in our gallery says Sleeping Beauty or Royston, that claim traveled with the stone, not with a wholesaler’s invoice. It also means we can tell you honestly whether a stone is natural or stabilized, because we knew it before it was set.
The other half of provenance is the hand that made the piece. Nearly everything in our cases is handmade by Native American artists, and the artist’s name is on the tag next to the mine’s — in this trade, attribution is the mark of authenticity, not a footnote. You’ll see both names carried through the women’s rings, men’s rings, cuffs, necklaces and pendants we carry, and across every department in the shop.
There isn’t one — there’s the mine whose look you fall for. Sleeping Beauty is the choice for a clean, even sky blue; Bisbee for deep blue with dramatic matrix; Royston for blue-to-green range; Carico Lake for its lime green. The best stone in any case is the one honestly named, well cut, and set by an artist who signed it.
Yes. Kingman in Arizona remains one of the most productive turquoise mines in the country, and Nevada mines such as Royston and Carico Lake are still active. But several of the most famous names — Sleeping Beauty since August 2012, Bisbee long before that — produce nothing new. Their stones now come only from stock already out of the ground.
Significantly. A closed mine’s stones cannot be replaced, so scarcity follows the name — and within any mine, grade still matters: color, hardness, cut, and whether the stone is natural or stabilized. Two stones from the same hill can be priced worlds apart, which is exactly why an honest tag has to say more than “genuine turquoise.”
Buy from a dealer who will put the mine, the artist, and the treatment in writing on your receipt — and who enjoys being asked. Short supply chains help too, which is the point of buying mine-direct. For the questions worth asking in any store, ours included, see our guide to buying authentic turquoise in Scottsdale.
From the Ground to Main Street
Browse the collection online — each piece named to its mine and its maker — or come stand over the cases on Main Street and see what the different grounds actually look like, side by side.
Browse the Turquoise CollectionPlan Your Visit
Sunrise Jewelry & Gallery — family owned & operated · our story
7254 E Main St, Suite 101, Old Town Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Open 7 days, 10:00–6:30 · (480) 425-9944