Turquoise

Item Description

A fairly hard to find specimen of Turquoise from the Sierrita Mountains in Pima County, Arizona. The piece was collected in the 1970s, and is one of the few Pinal County Turquoise specimens that we've ever seen. The piece was acquired by Dave Bergman from a local dealer at the Tucson Show in 1981. It features beautifully colored patches of polished Turquoise, intermixed with Quartz. If you're a fan of Turquoise or Arizona minerals, this is a very good sized specimen from what I would call a rare locality. Specimen weight is 106.6 grams.
This piece comes from the personal collection of Colorado mining legend, Dave Bergman, the maternal grandfather of Brian Kosnar. Dave is now retired from mining, but he worked for decades in various mines underground in Colorado, as a miner, mechanic, engineer, shift boss and foreman. His biggest claim to fame is that he was the foreman and the primary person in charge of mining and specimen recovery at the Sweet Home Mine in Colorado in the 1970s alongside his son-in-law, Rich Kosnar. This project what was the FIRST ever operation for specimen recovery at this historic locality. A full-page photograph of Dave can be seen mining underground at the Sweet Home in on page 58 of Peter Bancroft's book "Gem and Crystal Treasures".