Lots of Loloma stuff

I was once asked what we look for in Charles Loloma pieces--what makes one "better" than another. I sat down and wrote out what we look for, and what influences the pricing.

1. Gold or silver? Gold will command a higher price than silver, unless there is something extremely special about the silver piece.

2. 18K or 14K? This does not make as much of a difference as it should, honestly. 18K pieces should be quite a bit more expensive than 14K pieces, but generally they are not—only a bit more expensive.

3. Quality of materials—mainly refers to the quality of the turquoise in the piece. Pieces with Lone Mountain, Bisbee, #8 or Lander will command a premium. And pieces with fossil ivory can be a problem to sell in certain states, so that can depress the price somewhat.

4. Date, and who made it. Earlier pieces are usually tastier to savvy collectors than later ones, because of the likelihood that Charles did the work himself. “Sonwai” Lolomas are still highly collectible, but all things being equal, more collectors will go for the earlier pieces.

5. Artistry. Here is where the subjectiveness comes in, and makes things interesting. Some pieces are just better than others.

6. Rarity—early pieces tend to be more uncommon than later ones. That is also a factor, though not as much a factor as other ones, like artistry and materials.

7. How it fits into Loloma’s art. Again, very subjective. But Loloma was known for certain things, like the “landscape” style of setting stones in bracelets, and the “inner beauty” inside inlay pieces. Things that show Loloma at his most creative will command a premium. I’m not doing a great job of explaining it, but as you go through the Loloma book, some pieces will just hit you right, and you will say “Yes, that is who he was.” That’s a big x-factor, and it shows up in pricing. That’s why his kachina face bracelets tend to be the most expensive of all (at the height of the market, they were selling for around $100,000).

8. Provenance and genuineness. This did not used to be a problem, but after 2006, when a lot of fake "Lolomas" started hitting the market, any piece with provenance back to before that time will command a premium.

Crosses and letters-what do they mean?

Recently, one of our favorite old bracelets came back to us. As you can see, it is indeed a great one:

The old green stones, the gooey silver, the terminal stones on the ends--it truly has it all.

There is one thing about it that is puzzling, however. On the sides are very clearly stamped the letter "E" several times.

The question is, why? Was the bracelet made for the silversmith's friend Ernest? Or his wife Edith? Was he a big fan of Evergreen High School? Or does the letter E have a deeper meaning in Navajo culture? The answer to these questions is, in all cases, probably no. (All apologies to the mighty Evergreen High Cougars.)

And how about this squash blossom necklace, where one of the blossoms has been replaced by a silver cross?

Was this done for a born-again Navajo around 1930? Again, probably not.

But then why? Why incorporate such powerful Anglo symbols into Native jewelry? The answer is, surprisingly, a variation on "why not?"

The Navajo have long been known as great adopters and adaptors, right down to their art. Those two most "Navajo" of art forms, weaving and silversmithing, are in fact relatively recently adopted from the Hopi and Anglos, respectively. And the symbols they use in their art sometimes borrow from other cultures as well, and sometimes for purely aesthetic reasons. In fact, the reason that letters and words will often appear on old Navajo weavings is because the weaver liked the way they looked. Proper spelling and the direction the letters faces were not important--what mattered was the visual appeal.

Crosses are a more complex matter, being inextricably linked with the spread of Christianity across Indian land. However, at the time this necklace was made, most Navajos were not Christian. Therefore, it is more than likely that a Navajo liked the way the single cross looked on the necklace, so decided to include it when the necklace was being strung.

Kenneth Begay and Charles Loloma--the wooden connection

In 1956, an innovative young Hopi potter and occasional jeweler named Charles Loloma moved to Scottsdale, Arizona into a studio space on Craftsman Court. There, he met many of the local artists who helped him along with his work and career, including Lloyd Kiva New and Fred Skaggs. His work progressed from purely silverwork to the creative use of stones and inlays for which he would become famous. By 1962, according to Martha Struever's LOLOMA, he was setting turquoise and coral like other Indian artists, but he had also started using the rather nontraditional material ironwood as well. It might seem an odd combination of the old and the new, but considering where Loloma lived and who some of his friends were, it was perfectly natural that ironwood would become one of his favorite and most commonly used inlay materials.

Just down the street in Scottsdale was the White Hogan, a shop which employed some of the best and most creative Navajo silversmiths of the day, including the Kee brothers and their cousin, Kenneth Begay. Loloma's admiration for Begay was no secret--he even made some pieces in Begay's signature "bar" pattern, as shown on page 62 of LOLOMA. One thing in which the White Hogan smiths were pioneers was the use of nontraditional patterns and materials, and one of their most commonly used inlay materials was ironwood. No other Indian artists of the day used ironwood in jewelry, and it makes perfect sense that the ever-open minded Loloma would learn about how to use this material from Begay and the others. By the mid-1960s, Loloma jewelry would often incorporate ironwood, as well as other unusual materials such as fossil ivory. Which brings us to...

This silver pendant by Loloma is in his "corn maiden" pattern, but unlike most other similar pendants, he used ironwood to simulate long, flowing brown hair. There is also turquoise and coral, but the colors that predominate are those of the ironwood and fossil ivory. It was likely made circa 1965-70, and is a fitting tribute to Begay and the other White Hogan smiths who introduced Loloma to ironwood.

What is so special about this bracelet? US ZUNI 1

The 1930s were a troubling time for Indian silverwork in the Southwest. Besides the devastation wrought by the Great Depression, there was the proliferation of low end (and low quality) tourist trade silverwork, much of which was neither handmade nor Indian made. To combat this, and to restore consumer confidence in the silverwork of the Indian Southwest, several programs were started, both by the government and by private entities. The United Indian Traders Association, which had been formed in 1931, began to give hallmark stamps to member posts and shops that agreed to follow certain quality and authenticity standards. The Navajo tribe itself formed the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild (also known as the Navajo Guild), which produced some very fine silverwork. Even the US Government itself got involved, which leads to the bracelet here....

A very nice bracelet, with Pueblo-style wirework decoration and nice turquoise. A typical Pueblo bracelet, you might say, uncommon but not truly rare.

Until you look at the terminals, and see that there is a hallmark on one of them, which is quite unusual for a Pueblo bracelet...

On March 9, 1937, the Indian Arts and Crafts Board (IACB) announced plans to distribute hallmark stamps to producers (mainly trading posts) that were willing to follow certain quality guidelines. The program was launched on April 6, 1938, and the stamps (US NAVAJO, US ZUNI, US PUEBLO and US HOPI, with associated numbers indicating the particular post or shop) were given to Kenneth Chapman and Ambrose Roanhorse, who were responsible for examining pieces and stamping those that met with their approval. By May 5, Chapman reported that he had stamped a total of 2,322 pieces, including 727 from the C. G. Wallace posts at Zuni and Sanders and Cedar Point, Arizona. (It is not known how many of those had the US ZUNI 1 mark used at Zuni, and how many had the US NAVAJO 2 mark used at Sanders and Cedar Point, which were both on the Navajo reservation. However, in our experience, the US NAVAJO 2 pieces are quite a bit more common.)

The program was well-intentioned, but unfortunately proved to be too cumbersome to last. The stamping program was shut down very soon after commencing, and those initial pieces stamped by Chapman and Roanhorse are probably the only ones they did. In any case, the hallmark on this bracelet proves that it was made at Zuni in 1937 or 1938, and was of sufficiently high quality to get the stamp of approval (literally) from Chapman and Roanhorse. A rare find, indeed.

For more information on this wonderful and important piece, give us a call at (480) 423-8777.

Bisbee--the turquoise mine that isn"t

It is a well known fact that turquoise is mined in many arid areas of the world, including Iran, Afghanistan, China and Mexico. For mot readers of these words, the most famous turquoise mines are those located in the American Southwest, with names like Lander, Blue Gem, Cerrillos and Lone Mountain. There are dedicated turquoise mines in all of these places, some still producing gorgeous turquoise, others sadly depleted and inactive. However, one of the most beloved types of turquoise is not actively mined, and in fact never has been--Bisbee, from Cochise County, Arizona.

This wonderful blue turquoise with a distinctive "chocolate" matrix has been on the market since the 1950s, but oddly, there is no true "Bisbee" turquoise mine. Instead, the turquoise deposits were located in the "Lavender Pit" area of the Cole Shaft copper mine. The money from copper mining in Bisbee dwarfs any profits to come from turquoise, so most early Bisbee came from "lunch pail" mining, where copper miners would take turquoise that had been loosened by blasting and put it in their lunch pails, to be sold later. Some even came from the waste dump, a casualty of the copper mining operations of then (and now).

In the early 1970s, a contract was awarded for a collecting and selling the turquoise, thus ending the lunch pail mining of earlier days. It is said that the overburden of the copper mine contains a great deal of turquoise, though extracting it may never happen for economic reasons. (Information courtesy of TURQUOISE: THE WORLD STORY OF A FASCINATING GEMSTONE by Lowry and Lowry.)

A bracelet containing five very fine Bisbee turquoise stones.