The answer to a common question

After "Can I use the bathroom?" and "What's your dog's name?" the most commonly asked question in our gallery is "Which piece is the oldest?" When our entire inventory is taken into account, the answer is this:

It is an Iroquois beaded bag that dates to circa 1820, and since the Navajo weren't producing metal jewelry at that time, none of our silver can match that. But if you limit the selection to jewelry, here is the winner:

This pair of copper hoops has a very interesting history. Most of our pieces come from private collections where they were appreciated and treasured. Sometimes, they weren't understood, but the owners at least knew they were around. With this pair of earrings, neither was the case. They were found in a drawer, in a very interesting location--Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Fort Huachuca dates back to 1877, which is probably about when these earrings were made. The fort is not in Navajo country, but it is certainly in Apache country, and trade between the Apaches and Navajo, both willing and unwilling, was extremely common in the 19th Century.
The copper wire hangers are recent additions, of course.

The wire has clearly been hand-worked--note the "seam" visible in the photo above at about 7 o'clock. There is also pitting that is consistent with someone working copper in a somewhat crude fashion.

Items like this can be very difficult to date, but the hand-worked character of these hoops, coupled with the wear and filework you can see on the ends, make anything other than a 1865-1880 date unlikely. The collection history also makes a 20th Century date nearly impossible, because Indian trade at the fort (which is not exactly located in a bustling population center, even by Arizona standards) would have been essentially shut down in the 20th Century.

Here is the earrings without the hanging wires. You can see the tapering ends, very characteristic of early hoop earrings. For anyone interested in wearable history, this pair of earrings is a real treasure. They are just over 1 1/4" in diameter, and actually are
more of a coppery color than shows in the photos. Their price is $895.

If you have any questions about them, please give us a call at (480) 423-8777. We are very proud of them--they are some of the earliest we have seen. To see another pair of early copper earrings, go to page 103 of the Frank and Holbrook book for a hammered pair in the Fred Harvey collection at the Heard Museum. There are also many examples of similar hoops done in silver throught the book.

The Final Piece of the Month for 2010

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water--the Piece of the Month is back.

This is a bracelet that I've been dying to feature for quite a while, because it has some things that require careful study (and detailed photos).

This is B TD/22, which on the surface is a very fine example of a Navajo row bracelet on twisted wire, circa 1920. It has excellent weight (84 grams, which as those of you who have read the latest Steve's Insider Info already know is a good weight for a piece from this era).

The stones are slightly domed cabs, not as high as you usually see in pieces from the 1920s. In fact, some of the stones look more like the nearly flat ones seen on pieces from circa 1910. And when you look closely, there is something else:

If you look carefully at the circled stones, you can see that they seem to have bezels within bezels. The outer bezels are relatively smooth, while the inner ones are serrated.

In all, 5 of the 9 stones have this double bezel. Technically, there is no reason for the smith to have done this--unless he was using previously set stones from an earlier piece. It is a great example of Navajo recycling, where an earlier item would be re-used in another way. It happens with turquoise beads set into bracelets or rings, and here it looks like stones were taken from an earlier bracelet and re-set on to this one.

Maybe the original bracelet broke beyond repair, or maybe the smith just needed the stones to complete this bracelet and didn't like the look of the earlier piece. Whatever the case, it makes this one of the more interesting bracelets we have ever owned.

The inside size is 5 7/8" with a 1" opening. It wears small, because it is shaped more round than other bracelets, but it can be re-shaped to fit. It would fit into any collection, because it is both a great example of the type and highly unusual. The special New Year's price is $1750.

We love talking about interesting pieces, so please give us a call with any questions.

A Holiday look at...us.

I usually take this space to highlight new acquisitions and share some of our knowledge and opinions about old Indian art, but this time I thought it might be good to actually introduce ourselves to those of you who haven't actually met us. We've had the opportunity to speak with most of our clients, but there are some people that know us from the website and our email address, so I'd just like to put a face on the names for you.

This is Max. He's 14, and lives with Tom and Deborah.

And here is Lily, who is 16 and lives with Steve and his family. Steve's other two dogs, Jasper and Riley, don't usually come to the gallery, but Max and Lily can be found there on most days hunting down chewy treats and keeping everyone safe from tennis balls.

These are the illustrious co-founders of TMT, Tom and Deborah Begner. We got this photo in one take.

And here's Steve Begner, the one responsible for the website and this blog. This was not the first take for this picture, and photo editing was used heavily.

From all of us at Turkey Mountain Traders, Happy Holidays and a joyful and prosperous New Year. The next blog post will have things rather than people, we promise.

To Chee or Not to Chee

Sorry about the title. Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I'll be okay.

Among serious collectors of American Indian silver, few artists bring out such opposite reactions as Mark Chee. Those who love him point to his incredibly solid silverwork and bold styling, as well as the outstanding turquoise he normally would use. Those who aren't so crazy about him call his pieces overly heavy, and point to some of his pieces that are, shall we say, not quite so successful from an artistic point of view. He was prone to bad days at the bench, certainly, so all of his pieces were definitely not created equal.

Still, when he had his A game working, he was an extremely skillful smith who used some of the best turquoise and thickest silver available. His preference for leaving the turquoise in more natural shapes is quite different from the finely shaped stones used by people like Peshlakai, and the sheer carat weight of his stones was far beyond that of any other prominent smith of his day.

Here is a bracelet that shows all that is good about Chee's work:


Our gram scale tops out at 120 grams, and this piece is heavier than that. I would guess around 140 grams, which for any other smith would be gargantuan. For Chee, it's about average for one of his row bracelets on tri-wires. The stone is beautifully matrixed Royston with a bluish-green tinge, all five pieces being very nicely matched. It was made somewhere between 1950 and 1975--Chee had a long career, so dating his pieces can be tricky.


The bracelet was a gift from the noted Indian Art dealer Lovena Ohl to a family member as a 16th birthday present almost 30 years ago. Ohl was renowned for her discerning eye for quality, and she certainly upheld her standards with this piece. The stampwork is clean, and the shaping of the stones, while variable, is still very much balanced from side to side.






As always, one of the best things about this bracelet is the hallmark--Chee's typical "fat eagle" hallmark is one of the most distinctive in the business.






Everything there is to love about Chee's work, with none of his defects (except for the heavy weight, which is only bad if you like your bracelets to be feathery and light). The inside size is 5 5/16" with a 1 1/4" opening, so it fits small to medium women's wrists. It is 1 5/8" wide at its widest, and tapers down to 15/16" at the ends. The price is SOLD, and it would be perfect for any collector who is looking for an exemplary piece of his work.


If you have any questions about this piece or Chee's work in general, please give us a call.

We wish there were more of these in the world, but there aren't.

Today, let's look at one of the most special things we have ever had the privilege of handling. Not the most expensive, certainly, but possibly the rarest.



These are Navajo tab earrings. Turquoise tab earrings are not at all uncommon, though ones of this age (circa 1890-1920) are rare treasures. They are pump-drilled, as can be seen in both photos--the person doing the drilling started on one side and drilled out a conical hole, then turned the stone over and drilled through from the other side. It is much more time-consuming to do it this way than to use an electric drill, which produced an evenly round hole. Very few pump-drilled beads were made after the widespread introduction of power tools after World War II, for obvious reasons. The copper wire wrap was done early (possibly not original, because it is very possible that these tabs started life on a necklace, but definitely original to their use as earrings). The half-dome buttons with the earring posts are recent additions, but the buttons are at least as old as the tabs.



Beyond the age, beauty and size (the tabs are 13/16" long, and the total hanging length of the earrings is 1 1/2"), these are the only old tab earrings we have ever seen that are made of azurite. Azurite is, according to Wikipedia, "a soft, deep blue copper mineral produced by weathering of copper ore deposits." With the profusion of copper deposits in the Southwest, it is understandable that some would end up in Navajo jewelry, and there are contemporary pieces that incorporate this mineral. But historically it is rare, like the garnets that show up (very infrequently) in old pieces. Since it was not mined commercially like turquoise, maybe that can be explained by a simple lack of supply. Whatever the reason, this pair is the only one we have seen.








The provenance is rather nice, as well--they came from the estate of Larry Frank, the well-known collector and author of INDIAN SILVER JEWELRY OF THE SOUTHWEST 1868-1930. Larry was legendary for his dogged pursuit of the rare and important in old Indian silverwork, as anyone who knew him can attest, and these certainly fit the bill. We were very lucky to acquire them, and we offer them with great pride. SOLD.

Please call or email with any questions.

Another Piece of the Month

Since Steve got bored and the previous Piece of the Month has sold, he decided to shorten the month and do another one. So, here it is.

This Navajo bracelet is like many others in that it is a ridged band with a turquoise setting. Many were made, and they are not difficult to find. However, this is a very unusual piece in many ways. First, the turquoise setting is placed on a plate with cast fleur-de-lis projections--not a common detail at all. Second, the heavy and even stamping on the outside of each outer ridge is an extremely skillful and unusual feature.

But the most interesting thing about this bracelet is the way the ridged band was made. Usually, ridged bands made by the Navajo at this time (circa 1915-20) were made in one of three ways: casting, filing a solid band, or joining multiple tri-wires. This piece was done by joining three hand-drawn tri-wires. Usually, this was done by joining the wires at the ends with a strip of silver. This would create the effect of a solid band, although in reality the tri-wires would only be joined together at two points. Though the wires might be touching all the way around the bracelet, they were not actually soldered together. A line would be visible from both the inside and the outside. But as you can see in the photo below, no such line is visible from the outside of this bracelet.

To fill the gaps between the wires, this smith did something we have not seen elsewhere--he took thin strips of silver and soldered them on the inside of the bracelet, creating a single solid band all the way around. The strips are clearly visible in the photo below.


This took quite a bit of work, and the result is absolutely beautiful--one of the most stylish and interesting Navajo bracelets we have owned.

The inside size of this bracelet is 5 1/2" with a 1 1/4" opening, and it can certainly be adjusted. It weighs in at an impressive 86.6 grams. As our Piece of the Month, the special price is $1875.

For more information, please call at (480) 423-8777 or drop us an email.

Piece of the Month--the bracelet that Perry loved.

This is our first Piece of the Month, where we take a piece and give our own view on it, including a special price.

Sometimes, a piece comes along that kind of gets lost. Maybe it's because it isn't a huge and dramatic thing, or maybe it doesn't have a hallmark, or maybe it doesn't photograph well. (Keep in mind that Steve still does all the photography, and he is not a pro by any means.) And sometimes, we have no idea why it doesn't get the attention it deserves. Here is one of those times.

This is B 2256, a Navajo bracelet from circa 1915. It is one of the best old Navajo bracelets we own, and has some really interesting technical points to it. In fact, at Indian Market, Perry Shorty spent 45 minutes looking at it, and said that if he had the time, it was the bracelet he wished he had made.

The first point is that the band is incredibly deeply filed--the artist took a solid band and filed three deep grooves into it, leaving two triangular ridges and two smaller ridges on the edges. He then filed in hatching on the side ridges, giving it the appearance of ropework. But the really difficult part was yet to come--he went into the center groove, where he had left a bit more silver than in the two outer grooves, and filed in some faux ropework there as well. It would have been much easier for him to file out all of the silver and create three equal grooves, which is the more common approach, but he did not take the easy way out. Had he cast the band, it would have been far easier for him to create something with ridges without having to go through the laborious process of filing.

In the circled area, you can see the faux ropework inside the center groove. All the decoration has been done with a file--if he had used a stamp on the edges, all the hatching would be the same. Note the small variations in the hatching, as well as in the center faux ropework.

Another area where the artist went the extra yard was in setting the stones. It would have been more typical for him to set five stones, leaving open space at the ends. Instead, he set an extra two stones on the terminals, which is extremely uncommon in early Navajo bracelets.

The circled area in this picture shows the extra stone set on the terminal. Note the early, thick bezels. It is also important to note that the faux ropework does not continue under the stone setting--if it did, that could easily mean that the stone had been set well after the bracelet was originally made.

This is a bracelet that could be worn by a woman with a small to average wrist, and can be sized to fit. It is a piece that rewards careful study, and the more you examine it the more you realize what a great piece it really is. The Piece of the Month price is SOLD.

As always, we love talking about the fine details of our pieces. Please feel free to call or email with any questions or comments.