Martinez Fox Turquoise Teardrop Pendant • Sterling Silver, One of a Kind

This is the fifth stone from a fifth mine, and every one of them is turquoise.

Sleeping Beauty came out of Globe, Arizona, clean robin's egg blue with no matrix at all. Sonoran Mountain came out green. Royston runs blue at one end and green at the other. And this one is Fox, out of Nevada, a deep teal that sits somewhere between all of them, speckled through with pale cloud and dark flecks of the rock it grew in.

Same mineral. Five completely different stones. That is the part most people never get told: turquoise is not a color, it is a map. What shade a stone lands on depends on what else was in the ground with it. Copper pushes it blue. Iron pulls it green. Zinc can send it yellow. The mine is the recipe, which is exactly why collectors buy by mine name instead of by the word turquoise.

Fox material has a density to it that photographs quieter than it wears. In person the teal is deep and a little moody, and the pale mottling gives it movement that a flat stone never has. For turquoise collectors deciding between stones, this pendant is the compact, deeply teal Fox option in the Martinez lineup — an easy everyday choice that still reads as a standout piece in a stack.

This is the most compact pendant in the collection, a touch shorter than the others, which makes it the easiest of them to wear under a collar or layer on a shorter chain as an everyday necklace or a distinctive accent in a stack.

Clean sterling bezel, matching Fox teardrop set into the bail so the color carries up. Signed Martinez, sterling, on the back. Designed as a single-variant pendant that hangs on your own chain, it also works beautifully as a charm-style drop for pendant collectors and gift givers looking for a one-of-a-kind piece.

The details

• Stone: Fox turquoise, Nevada, deep teal with pale mottling and dark flecks
• Metal: sterling silver
• Hallmark: Martinez, sterling
• Pendant: just under 1 inch long, approximately 1 1/2 inches including the bail
• Bail: set with a matching Fox teardrop
• Chain: not included, hangs on your own
• One of a kind: yes, a single piece

Learn the mines and you stop shopping for turquoise. You start shopping for a specific stone – which is exactly where this Fox turquoise teardrop pendant belongs in a collection or as a thoughtfully chosen gift for someone who lives in their everyday necklace and loves unique, hallmarked silver.