Nice chunky piece of very rare Natural and un-treated Australian Turquoise, selected to give a very good yield, if cut into stones. It is also of the more dense and harder type of Australian Turquoise.
It's neither stabilized nor dyed, just Mother Nature's natural colour which is a soft pastel green which makes it stand out amongst Turquoise from most parts of the world.
Background:
This Turquoise, our "TurqOZ", was mined
by a public company in the early/mid 1970's and apparently is the only commercial Turquoise mine that has operated in Australia although the core of the mining operation was centered around mining for Zinc.
Many tons were purchased and then shipped to the USA by my gem exports company via AIRFREIGHT... in 44 gallon drums!
The mine was, however, forced to close down when approaching an Aboriginal sacred site and it's possible the mine ran out of Zinc and was no longer profitable.
So, when it seized mining, I bought all of the rough that the company had on hand in January, 1975, and just stored it away; becoming another classic case of my "out of sight, out of mind".
Until now, after nearly HALF A CENTURY in "hibernation" (time DOES fly away!) being "discovered" during a long overdue cleanup.
