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.