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.

   

Dealer Lingo: The Slang We Use

Every business has its own vernacular language, and the antique Indian art business is no different.  We as dealers sometimes assume that what we say is understandable to everyone, when in fact a little dictionary would sometimes be quite helpful.  So, as a public service, here is a listing of terms that we in the biz use that you may run into sometimes, and their real-world definitions:

Tranny--definitely not what it means in the bigger world.  A transitional blanket, woven by a Navajo weaver between 1880 and 1905.  Made from handspun wools, often in an eye-dazzler pattern.

Stoplight ring--a Navajo ring with three round turquoise, set vertically like in a stoplight.

Salt and pepper beadwork--beadwork done with a random pattern of colors, rather than in a specific pattern.

Diamond slot First Phase--an early Navajo concho belt, with a diamond shaped opening with a central bar so that the leather can be threaded through the concho.  These were made before soldering was a common practice amongst the Navajo, because after that, loops were soldered on to the back of conchos to hold the leather.

Height bracelet or ring--a bracelet or ring with stones set in differing heights.  This was a specialty of Charles Loloma, who invented the technique and used it to represent mesas and landscapes.  Not a common technique, but when done well it is very striking and beautiful.

Fishscale inlay--a Zuni technique of channel inlay where the stones are set in small, curved pieces.  The resulting effect is very much like a fishscale pattern.

Sawtooth bezel--a silver bezel with hand-cut serrations resembling the teeth of a saw blade.  Normally found in early (pre-1930) Navajo silverwork.

Heavy Harvey jewelry--tourist-trade oriented jewelry that is heavier than the usual very thin, badly made jewelry that was sold to tourists before 1940.  Unlike much tourist trade jewelry, Heavy Harvey pieces are hand-made, and often incorporate good turquoise.

Windowpane earrings--early (usually) earrings where a turquoise tab is edge-wrapped in silver to produce a windowpane effect on both sides. 

Blank--a commercially made casting mold, often used in lower-end jewelry to produce cast pieces.  Pieces made from blanks will be even and precise and will show up multiple times.  Pieces from hand-carved casting molds will show the slight imperfections of all hand-made things and will often be totally unique.

Shiprock Yei--a Navajo weaving with a white background, incorporating Yei holy figures and often cornplants.  Most were woven in the Four Corners region, an area dominated by Shiprock.

Crow pink--a shade of pink beads that was especially favored in the work of the Crow people.

Cutter--a Navajo weaving that is so damaged that its only use is to be cut up and used for pillows or in jacket inserts.

Resto--short for restoration.

Beader--a piece of beadwork that is damaged beyond repair and is normally used as a "bead mine" to fix other pieces.

Whitehearts--early red beads with a white center.

Dance bead--a bead, usually turquoise, that has been attached to a necklace to show that it has been worn in a dance or ceremony.

Burn--as in, "to burn a piece".  That is, to expose a piece to the market at an unrealistic high price.  A pet peeve of reputable dealers.

That is all for now, but we will rack our brains searching for other entries.  If you know of any that we have neglected, please let us know!