Here’s a Paul Livingston piece. What’s so special about it? It’s a perfect frame for a gorgeous piece of what’s called polychrome Kingman turquoise. There’s some mild webbing, but the variegated color is what this piece is all about. It’s blue, light blue, green, and brown. There’s even some smoky grey at the top if you look carefully. Why does this turquoise matter? Well, it’s “The Good Stuff™” from the Kingman mine(s) in Kingman, Arizona. It’s one of the most important mines in southwest turquoise history because it produces A LOT of turquoise. But more importantly, it produces a huge variety of turquoise. You can get blue, green, dark green, blue with green, pieces with pyrite, pieces with kaolin, electric blue, powder blue, or even bright green. I’ve seen turquoise from the Kingman mine(s) that look like some old-school mines.

But beyond that, the polychrome stuff is highly sought after. But germain to this piece is the fact that the turquoise has features you’d find in bigger pieces. This, in the turquoise business, is referred to as “gem grade” turquoise. It’s thusly called because it can be used to make smaller pieces and remain interesting. Imagine this piece of turquoise about 12inin in diameter. Now cut a section into a 1-inch piece. Notice how the piece you just cut in your mind looks like a smear? Right. That’s not terrible, but its price per carat is lower than the stuff you can cut and make dazzling “dainty” pieces. Why dainty pieces? Well, earrings or cuffs/bracelets that work with modern clothing demand smaller “gem grade” pieces of turquoise. Which is hard to get and in high demand. You don’t need an economics degree from Princeton to figure out the rest of it.

Alright, so I told you all of this about the turquoise and why it looks the way it does. But what does this mean to you? Ah-ha! It means everything. Most of us want our jewelry to fit into our wardrobe. So while it’s perfectly fine to have larger more ostentatious pieces, it’s super important to have pieces that work with your ensemble. Given that, Paul Livingston has done you a favor. I’ll pick some superlatives from the description above to write a description that’ll make sense now.

“This is a gorgeous Paul Livingston cuff bracelet with a marvelous piece of variegated/polychrome Kingman turquoise. This gem grade stone was carefully polished to perfection [blah, blah, blah, etc]”

See? But without that context, I’m telling you what you already know. You think it’s pretty or you wouldn’t have clicked on it. You can see it’s a multi-color stone. I already told you it’s Kingman turquoise in the title. So you can see my dilemma when I’m writing. I don’t want to take your time for granted and I want you to fully comprehend what this is and why it is. If you can’t remember any of this, just remember this quote: “This stone is nuts and Paul Livingston pieces are amazing!”