Honest and Dishonest Wear

 One of the important characteristics of any piece of antique Southwest Indian silverwork is what we call "wear", which refers to the way that the silver is worn down over time by contact with something else, either skin or another piece of jewelry.  Wear gives old pieces their distinctive look and feel, and is something that can give inexperienced collectors a lot of trouble.  It can be difficult to tell if the wear is "honest", coming from simple use over a long period of time, or "dishonest", done artificially to deceive?  Some of it is just a feeling you get about a piece after having handled thousands of them over decades, a feeling that a piece just isn't "right".  But there are certain things to look for, and a good way to demonstrate what they are is to look at a piece that is "wrong".

Turkey Mountain Traders purchased the bracelet below in 1998, and it has never been offered for sale.  We kept it on hand to demonstrate to interested collectors what a piece should not look like, and how to tell the difference between "honest" wear and the other, man-made kind.

A nice looking bracelet, definitely.  Plate on band bracelets like this one are highly prized by collectors.  If this piece was "right", it would definitely sell for a good bit of money.  So, what is the problem?

First of all, if you look at the plate, you can see that it was set over the stampwork, which means that it is a later addition.  This in itself is not a huge problem, because there are many older silver bands that had plates added to them many years ago.  The plate and bezel look to be of the 1915-20 era by technique, so that alone is not enough to discredit the piece, but it does mean you should look more closely at it.

Second is the quality of the chisel work on the plate.  It is more uneven than you would expect from a piece of otherwise high quality.  Smiths from the 1910s were quite skilled in this kind of detail, and it is unlikely that such sloppy work would have been allowed to leave the forge.  Again, though, this is not enough to call the piece "wrong".  For that, you have to look more closely:

Sometimes, to simulate wear, a more modern smith will strike lightly when stamping a piece, which is what looks like happened here.  But if you go a bit further down the band, there is something even more odd:

I have taken as close a picture as I possibly could, but if I could take a picture while looking through a 10-power loupe, you would see that what looks like wear here is actually manipulated, probably with a file.  True "honest" wear would be what you get when your finger and thumb grab the end of the bracelet to take it off and put it back on.  What looks like that kind of wear here is actually just a light stamp on the end, which was then filed down.

Another strike against this piece is the evenness of the wear throughout the bracelet.  "Honest" wear occurs in certain places where a bracelet touches other bracelets, or where the owner touches it to take it off and put it on.  That touching does not occur evenly all over the bracelet, such as we see here.  One area on the side or the end, or both, should be worn down more than other parts of the piece.  Even wear like this can only be done through purposeful manipulation, usually in an effort to deceive. 

With a 10-power loupe, you can see that the stamping has actually been painted with some kind of darkening pigment to simulate patina, another red flag.

As a final problem with this bracelet, there are no annealing delaminations on the inside, which is entirely smooth.  Not all old pieces have delaminations, but it is somewhat unusual to see one without.

Put it all together, and the piece just "feels" wrong.  And after 30 years of looking at these magnificent pieces of art, we've learned to trust our feelings.

If you have any comments or questions, please drop us an email or call us at (480) 423-8777.

 

Remembrance and Opportunity

One day years ago, in a little town in Texas, a woman and her husband walked into the Turkey Mountain Traders booth at an antique show.  Many people have walked into many booths at many antique shows, but this turned into something special and beautiful.  The couple was Geraldine and Dave Howard, and they became very good clients of Turkey Mountain Traders, and close friends as well.  Geraldine's love of Native American silverwork and jewelry, and her desire to learn about it, was the basis for a beautiful friendship that lasted right up until her passing earlier this year.  And during this friendship, she put together an absolutely first-class collection of antique, vintage and contemporary Southwest Indian silverwork and jewelry.

Geraldine and Dave Howard with "Mysticator"

At the Whitehawk Show in Santa Fe on August 8-11, and again at the Native Treasures Show in the Santa Fe Eldorado Hotel on August 14-17, Turkey Mountain Traders is honored to present selections from the Geraldine Howard collection for purchase.  The collection and the pieces in it are a testament to Geraldine's taste and love for the material, and this is a fabulous opportunity to see and purchase outstanding pieces by great artists.  There will be top-quality antique pieces dating back as far as 1880, amazing vintage pieces by Kenneth Begay, Charles Loloma, Preston Monongye, Mark Chee, Julian Lovato and many others, and lovely contemporary pieces by Lee and Raymond Yazzie, Myron Panteah, Ron Bedonie and others.

This is the best private collection to come to market in many years, and anyone with an interest in Southwestern jewelry and silverwork should make plans to visit the Turkey Mountain Traders booth at these two shows.  Questions?  Give us a call at (480) 423-8777 or send us an email at info@turkey-mountain.com.

Silver and Gold

Silver and gold are both precious metals with many uses outside of the jewelry industry, and both are publicly traded commodities which can fluctuate wildly in price.  These price fluctuations can make or break the fortunes of investors, as well as having a major effect on the collecting passions of people in the American Indian jewelry world.  What has been the recent effect of some of the market activity?  Let's take a look at both cases, starting with silver.

At the time of this writing, silver was trading at 80 cents per gram, or $34.16 per dwt.  That is just off the 5-year high of $34.30 per dwt, which was achieved on Friday, March 28, 2025.  The 5-year low was $12.28 per dwt on March 19, 2020.  How does that affect the price of American Indian jewelry?  The simple answer in terms of historic and vintage pieces is very little, because the value of the silver in these pieces is quite a bit less than the market value of the piece.  As an example, let's look at this bracelet by Johnny Mike Begay, brother of Kenneth Begay and an important silversmith in his own right:

A beautiful piece of art, no doubt.  The total weight is 46 grams, which means at current market price, there is $36.80 worth of silver in this bracelet.  (The weight of the turquoise is under a gram.)  If silver doubled in price, there would still be only $73.60 worth of silver in the bracelet.  Johnny Mike Begay bracelets of this quality have a current market value of far more than that, so there is no danger of anyone with any knowledge of the marketplace melting this down.  Nor is there a chance of the price of silver going up enough to materially impact the market value of this intact bracelet--silver value in antique and vintage pieces is a very small component in determining the market value of any high-quality piece.

Where the cost of silver shows up as a factor is in newer and less artistically important pieces, generally with a price under $300.  There, without the history and artistic importance of a piece like the bracelet above, fluctuations in the price of silver can definitely impact a piece's market value, to the point where some pieces of lower worth are actually most valuable as scrap.

Gold was not in general use in American Indian jewelry before the mid-1960s, but many very expensive contemporary pieces are either partly or all gold, either 14k or 18k.  The current price of gold as I sit typing this is $88.38 per gram, or $3,134.70 per dwt.  That is for pure gold--14k and 18k would be less, but still quite a bit more expensive than silver.  At those price levels, a bracelet like the one above, if it was made of 14k gold at $56.15 per gram, would contain nearly $2,600 worth of gold.  At those levels, only the most high-level jewelers can afford to make such a piece, even if, as is often the case, they are receiving financial backing.  

With gold being as expensive as it is currently, it is vitally important for collectors to know whether a finished piece is 14k or 18k, because 18k is currently worth nearly 30% more than 14k.

The lesson to learn?  When someone says how much the price of gold has impacted the American Indian jewelry market, they are probably right.  When they say the same about the price of silver, it only holds true at a lower dollar level. 

The Best of FP

One of the finest and most admired Navajo silversmiths to ever swing a hammer was Fred Peshlakai, whose influence is still being felt to this very day.  The son of Slender Maker of Silver, he was the first Navajo smith known to highlight turquoise from the great American mines, and the earliest Navajo artist to regularly incorporate wirework and applique designs.  The quality of his stampwork has never been surpassed, and from a business standpoint he was one of the first Indian artists to open a shop of his own--in Los Angeles, no less.

His work is highly prized by collectors and museums alike, though in fact, his production was large.  His pieces are not rare to the market, actually.  What is rare is to find a piece that incorporates all the factors that make one of his superior pieces truly great: top-quality turquoise, perfect balance of design, and a proper hallmark.  (Many of his pieces do not have a hallmark.  Identification as his work is through careful study of the stamps used, materials contained within, and the design elements.  But that is an inexact science at best.)  When you find a piece that contains all the elements to be great, it is a good day indeed.  Here is our latest find from Fred Peshlakai, which certainly qualifies:

The first thing you notice about this bracelet is the wonderfully matrixed turquoise, which is almost certainly #8.  Peshlakai had a great preference for certain types of turquoise, especially #8, Lone Mountain and Blue Gem, much of which he procured from a trader named Doc Wilson.  Unusual for #8, the cabochon is domed.  The second thing is the applique work, including ropework, round wire and two wonderful repoussed hearts.  The straight lines of ropework at the top and bottom occur with some frequency in Peshlakai's work, and nowhere else.

The stampwork is clean and even, though not as complex as on some other Peshlakai pieces.  However this can be explained by looking at the very small surface area available for stampwork.  

And the final piece to the puzzle--the hallmark.  This bracelet has his F. P. hallmark, this time inside a cartouche.  It is hard to say exactly when this hallmark was used, but this bracelet likely dates to the early 1950s judging by the design and quality of turquoise.

This bracelet has an inside size of 5 5/8" with a 1 3/16" opening that can be adjusted, a width of 1 1/2", and a weight of 68 grams.  It is SOLD; email us or call (480) 423-8777 for details.  For more information on Peshlakai, you can consult Steven Curtis' book NAVAJO SILVERSMITH FRED PESHLAKAI: HIS LIFE AND ART.  And be sure to check the website for other examples of Peshlakai's work.

  

The Prodigal Plates Return!

 Sometimes, the objects we handle have a personal connection to us that makes them extra-special.  Here is the story of something just like that:

There are four silver plates by Ike Wilson, each exactly alike.  Here is a closer photo of one of them:

You can see the large size of each plate--just over 5 3/4" in diameter.  (The dollar bill is just for scale, and not included with the plates.)  Condition is wonderful--any smudges or blemishes on the inside are a figment of the photo, and do not exist in real life.  Here is a detail shot of the incredible stampwork:

The spacing on the stampwork is perfect, and the composition is incredible.  Here is a picture of the bottom:

The four dishes nest together very well.  And here is the hallmark:

Each plate is hallmarked with a bow and arrow, and this is where it gets really interesting.  That is the hallmark for Ike Wilson, a great Navajo silversmith who was accidentally shot to death by his wife Katherine in 1942.  After Ike's death, Katherine continued to use his stamps and hallmark until the 1980s, so many pieces that have been attributed to Ike were really done by Katherine.  However, since these plates were collected before 1938, this is definitely Ike's work.  (Thanks to Kim and Pat Messier for their research on Ike and Katherine Wilson, published in their 2014 book REASSESSING HALLMARKS OF NATIVE SOUTHWEST JEWELRY.  It is a must-have for any serious collector of Southwest Indian silverwork.)

And the story behind these plates?  Here it is:

It was the summer of 1993, and I (Steve) was working for the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colorado.  My job was in the Field Seminars department, which was a very fancy way of saying I was a tour bus driver and tour arranger.  We would take groups around the Southwest to important and interesting cultural and archaeological places (I long ago lost count of how many times I've been to Chaco Canyon), all in the comfort of 15-person Ford vans with luggage racks on top.  Among other things, I got to know where every gas station bathroom in the Four Corners area was located.  But seriously, it was a great experience.

Most people would fly into the Durango airport, and the trips would begin from Cortez.  Lost or delayed luggage was a pretty frequent problem, and often one of the Field Seminars drivers who was not part of a trip would be called upon to shuttle a late bag to wherever the person happened to be.  In this case, it was at Hopi, a five-hour drive from Durango.  Needless to say, I was pretty waxed when I got to the Hopi Cultural Center and delivered the bag, so I was going to stay overnight there and have dinner with the group.  After eating, they were supposed to hear a presentation from the Hopi Cultural Preservation Officer, but half an hour after it was supposed to begin, he had not shown up.  To kill some time, I offered to do a short talk on the trading post system on the Navajo and Hopi reservations, which eventually turned into a two-hour question and answer session.  (No, he never did show up.)

Afterwards, a very nice older woman came up to me and said she had enjoyed the talk very much, and also that she liked the bracelet I was wearing.  She mentioned that a relative of hers had collected a number of "chief's bracelets" like that, as well as other pieces, and she was looking to sell them. She said she would call when she got back to Pennsylvania, and we went our separate ways.  I went off to bed, and the next day back to Cortez.

Turns out, this relative had spent every summer in the 1920s and 1930s in Estes Park, Colorado, and had bought quite a bit of very nice Indian silver.  She stopped going out West in 1938, so everything dated to before that.  A lot of great pieces, with great provenance, all totally fresh to the market.  Included in that were some tableware items, including some silver plates.  Believe me, it didn't take long to sell every last piece.

Fast forward to last month, I came upon a listing that looked interesting, for 4 Ike Wilson silver plates.  When I looked closer, I saw that the provenance listed a 1994 sales slip from Turkey Mountain Traders, saying that they had been bought in Colorado before 1938.  Here were the prodigal (not in a bad way) plates, just waiting for us to bring them home.  So, we did, and here they are: 

So, you have a set of four important masterpieces with a renowned known maker and solid provenance, and a cute backstory to boot.  The price for the four plates is $4200.  Please call 480-423-8777 with any questions or email us at info@turkey-mountain.com.  

Pump-Drilled and Electric-Drilled: Small Differences Make a Big Difference

The first "Indian" jewelry was made from shell and stone beads strung on a type of cordage; examples of beads made from turquoise and shell have been excavated from ruins in Chaco Canyon.  To this day, shell and turquoise bead and tab necklaces are an important part of any collection of Southwest Indian jewelry and are considered the most "Indian" of all Indian jewelry.  There are still a few artists who hand-roll their shell and stone beads, and pieces by practitioners of this art such as Cheryl Yestewa, Piki Wadsworth, Ray Lovato and the Reanos are avidly collected by the cognoscenti.  

In terms of telling the difference between older shell and turquoise necklaces and newer ones, it can be a difficult task.  The cordage used can be helpful, but often necklaces break and the original cordage is replaced by something more modern (and stronger).  The type of turquoise used can sometimes be an indicator of age, but often the turquoise is a plain green or blue, without any defining matrix to determine what mine it is from or even how old it might be.  What is left?  One major factor remaining is the method of drilling the holes in the beads, which can be very diagnostic indeed.

Shown above are two shell and turquoise necklaces.  The one on the left dates to 1940-1960, while the one on the right is considerably older, likely 1900-1920.  The reason we can say that is that the beads and tabs of the left necklace were drilled with an electric drill, while the beads and tabs of the right necklace show all the signs of being drilled with a pump drill.

Before the Pueblos were electrified sometime in the period between 1945 and 1960, the only method beadmakers had to drill holes into their beads was the pump drill.  One is shown above without the sharpened bit that would be attached to the bottom.  The stick in the middle is pushed up and down and slides along the shaft, creating a back-and-forth spin of the sharpened bit that (eventually) creates a drilled hole.  It is tedious work, because the bit does not rotate quickly enough to do much drilling work on every pump, but as they say, it beats the alternative.

If you look at the piece of turquoise above, which is from the right-hand necklace, so can see the results of a pump drill at work.  The hole produced is conical, and normally quite a bit larger at the top than the bottom.  Also, since a pump driller would drill on one side until it pierced the other and then turn over the bead to be drilled from the other side, the overall profile of the hole is that of an hourglass, with one side deeper than the other.  Contrast that with the hole in the piece of turquoise below:

This turquoise is from the newer necklace, and you can see the hole is quite a bit smaller and more regular.  It was drilled electrically, with something similar to a dental drill.  The high speed of the electric drill creates a cylindrical hole with a nearly even profile and enables the beadmaker to make many more beads with far less breakage and effort.

Whether pump-drilled or electrically drilled, making beads is an art form to be admired.  But pump-drilled pieces are old and quite rare, and command far higher prices than their equally beautiful electrically drilled cousins.

For information on either of the necklaces pictures here, or with any questions, feel free to email us or give us a call at (480) 423-8777.

Happy New Year!

  

Monongya's Mastery, In One Piece

 The list of true contemporary masters in Southwest Indian silverwork is short, but any such list surely must include the name of Jesse Monongya.  Through his long and productive career, he has continually pushed the boundaries of "Indian" jewelry, both technically and in his choice of materials.  His mastery of mosaic inlay is superb, and he almost singlehandedly popularized the use of materials such as opal.  We would like to celebrate him and his jewelry by looking closely at a piece that demonstrates what is great and unique about his work--this 14k gold and inlay belt buckle.

The buckle is one of his "night sky" pieces, although different from many in that the background is blue rather than black.  Many artists have followed his lead in making "night sky" pieces, but he was the original, and his work is of exceedingly high quality.  He also used the finest materials, such as natural opal, high grade coral and natural lapis.  His use of dot inlay is not groundbreaking (Leo Poblano and Teddy Weahkee were doing it as far back as the 1930s), but the way he sometimes uses a ring of gold or silver around a colored dot is his innovation (note the red dot in the top right hand corner of the buckle with a gold ring around it.)  And, in fact, three of the red dots are actually high-quality Burmese rubies that fluoresce under UV light. 

One thing about this buckle that is different from much of his earlier work is his use of diamonds along the edges.  And not just tiny melee diamonds, either--each diamond is approximately 3/16 of a carat, so there is a total of approximately 1.5 carats of diamond in the buckle.  As is proper when setting diamonds, he left the back open to let more light through to highlight the sparkle of the stones.

What is truly unique about this buckle, though, is what is on the back:

Totally unexpected, and quite wonderful.  Note the great attention to detail, including the coral tips to the antennae of the butterfly.  Kind of an homage to Loloma and his "inner beauty" pieces with the inlay on the inside, where only the wearer knows it is there.  His hallmark is directly above the butterfly, and his last name is spelled with an A on the end, as he did in later pieces.  (We currently have a necklace he did in 1985 where it is spelled with an E on the end.)

The buckle measures 2 3/4" x 1 5/8", takes up to a 1" leather, and weighs 77 grams.  It is currently available for purchase--for more information, email us or call at (480) 423-8777.