Sleeping Beauty turquoise comes from a mine near Globe, Arizona, and is prized for the opposite of spiderweb: a clean, solid, light robin's-egg blue with little or no matrix. The mine stopped producing turquoise in 2012, so this pure, even-blue stone has grown steadily scarcer and more valuable.
The Sleeping Beauty mine — named for a mountain near Globe, Arizona, whose silhouette resembles a sleeping woman — was for decades a major source of clean blue turquoise. In 2012 the operation ceased turquoise production to focus on copper, ending the supply of new stone and turning existing material into a closing window.
Sleeping Beauty is defined by purity. Its hallmark is an even, light sky-blue with no matrix at all — the smooth, solid “robin's-egg” blue that many people picture when they think of turquoise. That uniform color made it a favorite for clean cabochons, channel inlay, and fine beads, where any matrix would interrupt the design.
The consistent color also made Sleeping Beauty popular for Zuni inlay and needlepoint work and for petite, matched stones. With the mine closed, demand has pushed prices up and made matrix-free Sleeping Beauty increasingly hard to source in quantity, so well-documented pieces are collected with care.
Its association with clean inlay also means Sleeping Beauty is often cut into small, calibrated stones — rounds, ovals, and tiny squares — that fit channel and mosaic designs precisely. That use, combined with the mine's closure, is why fine matched lots of small Sleeping Beauty have become particularly hard to replace, and why older inlay pieces set with it are valued for the stone as much as the silver. The pure, untreated blue also tends to hold its color well, since there is no dye or heavy stabilization to fade.
Pure, matrix-free blue is also the easiest look to imitate with dyed howlite or reconstituted stone, so attribution is everything. Buy Sleeping Beauty from sellers who disclose treatment and provenance and back the stone in writing.