Robin’s Egg

Sometime in 2008 or 9 I lost a favourite turquoise ring, the stone becoming dislodged from its sterling silver setting and falling out in the street one evening as I walked home from a night out with friends. I was devastated, because turquoise – or robin’s egg blue – is my favourite colour, and that stone was a perfect blue with no intrusions. It was actually as big as a robin’s egg too, although it was flattish; it was even tear-drop-shaped. (Sadly I never photographed it.)

In 2011 I bought another turquoise ring in Barcelona, which I do like very much too. It is quite a different design, being stone all the way round (see it here). However, a couple of weeks ago I found a ring in a thrift store that is almost an exact replica of the original! I couldn’t believe it. Only the shape is different, being more oval, and it has a few brown veins of limonite (iron ore) threading through it. But it is comparable in size to the original, being 3cm x 2.5cm (the original was slightly longer). Extraordinarily, it was priced at only $10 – I paid a lot more for the original ring! Talk about luck, even if it took eight years to strike.

a couple of weeks ago I found a ring … that is almost an exact replica of the original!

The name ‘turquoise’ means ‘Turkish stone’, and comes from the French pierre turquoise, because the trade routes that brought this sky-blue stone to Europe from Asia passed through Turkey, and Italian merchants often purchased it in Turkish bazaars. It is probably the oldest stone in mankind’s history: turquoise beads from Iran have been dated back to 5000 BC; the Egyptians were mining it since 3200 BC; and of course native Americans have been mining and fashioning it for almost a thousand years too.

It is a beautiful stone with an extraordinary pedigree, and now it will adorn my hand once more. Just like the original ring, the plain setting lets this opaque stone really shine.

Photo: Today