Stabilized turquoise: learn how it differs from natural turquoise. (Stabilized turquoise pictured).

This second of an ongoing series, explains why a lot of turquoise seen in jewelry must go through a "stabilizing" process before it can be cut into gemstones and worn. The fact is, at most mines, the turquoise yielded is way too soft and chalky to survive the grinding/polishing process. Turquoise beads, especially, must be hardened and toughened up to survive being pierced by the drill. This is why when you come across natural turquoise, you know you have something special. This video shows not only stabilized turquoise but also close-ups of natural stones that make it easy for a buyer to tell when a gem is untreated. Moreover, we get to see some beautiful--and extremely rare--all natural nugget turquoise beads from the famed Fox and Carico Lake turquoise mines of Nevada. We'll also take a look at some beautiful, albeit stabilized, beads and gemstones from Egypt as well as Kingman, Arizona. As a little guessing game, the video will present some natural versus stabilized turquoise side-by-side to see if viewers can tell the diffrence. We will finish by looking closely at some jewelry and seeing if we can tell which pieces have stabilized turquoise, and along the way discover gratitude for the stabilizing process, which not only makes beautiful turquoise more plentiful for all of us masses who love the stuff, but also because some stones are just plain beautiful, natural or not.