Santo Domingo Lone Mountain Turquoise 3 Strand Necklace

This magnificent three strand bead necklace was created by master lapidary artist Ray Lovato, and is cut from high-grade, natural, sky blue Lone Mountain turquoise. Lone Mountain is a hard, durable turquoise that has always been noted for holding its color. Among all “classic” Southwestern turquoise, only Lander Blue is considered more valuable. The Lone Mountain mine consists of a series of haphazard tunnels dug by miners chasing valuable veins. The mine was claimed by Lee Hand in 1920, first as the Blue Jay Mining Lode and later as Lone Mountain. In the 1960s, Lone Mountain was converted to a small open pit operations by Menliss Winfield, and to this day continues to be mined in that fashion. In 1979 Gene Waddell purchased the claim with the King family of Austin, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Gene has had several partners over the years, but the property has only been mined six of the last 28 years. Ray discovered this turquoise in a private collection and talked the owner into letting him purchase the stash. This necklace is a turquoise treasure if ever there was one.