Turquoise/Native American jewelry

[alanfgag]

Those are spectacular pieces. Thank you for sharing them.

Do you have an online gallery of your work?

 

[Michaelshane]

I sell mostly to dealers who have been selling my jewelry for many years.I very seldom make anything that is not already sold.Im trying to cut back on jewelry and concentrate on painting in my old age.

 

[Bassman]

Beautiful work Michaelshane!

 

[Michaelshane]

I also do gold and gemstones,mokume' gane,reticulation,granulation,I cut all my own stones.I can pretty much make anything.Knives and muzzleloader rifles included.

 

[alanfgag]

antique trade beads

I've traded money for a few different strands of trade beads. I enjoy them and enjoy wearing them too. These beads were collected from the Columbia River Basin in the 1940s-1950s and were strung around that time. The beads were made sometime during the late 18th or early 19th century. I wish I could read the markings on the old metal button that the strand is tied off to. I expect it was found in the same area.

Apologies for using the iPhone to photograph these... it is really not up to the challenge.

 

[Michaelshane]

Those beads are great.I have some just like some of those.

 

[alanfgag]

Thanks. I have a few others that I'll get around to shooting and posting.

 

[John in Covina]

This reminds me that i'd love to go to the annual rock show in Quartzite, AZ.

 

[alanfgag]

This bracelet is signed Kat 52 55. No idea who this might be. The piece is quite weighty with a simple but elegant design with deep stamping done carefully.

 

[alanfgag]

A set of collar tips by Ambrose Roanhorse... a part of my growing western wardrobe. Somebody save me.

 

[alanfgag]

I spent some time on a quiet Saturday taking pictures of stuff I'd been meaning to shoot for a while. This is a string of archaic Chumash stone beads that came from the same collection as the trade beads posted above. The era of these basalt, granite and shell beads is purported to be 800-1500 A.D. They were collected from the Channel Islands of California and strung during the 1940s. I can only imagine the work that went into bow drilling these.

 

[alanfgag]

Old Navajo cuff, signed RM - maker unknown to me.

 

[gtdean48]

Old Navajo cuff, signed RM - maker unknown to me....

Awesome!

 

[randooch]

Just now saw your post, Alan. May I ask, what does the term "bow drilling" connote? It amazes me that any material as hard as granite (5 or 6 on the Moh's scale?) could have been drilled back then.

Great pictures.

 

[alanfgag]

Thanks you, Tom and Randall.

I haven't looked enough into bow-drilling to understand how this work was done through such hard igneous rock, but the Chumash Indians were skilled bead makers. I did ask the seller of this piece for some additional information to which she sent this response:

"These beads and all of the other Chumash and California cultural material offered on this site, came from the Fred Casebeer collection, Sacramento California. The entire collection was purchased by the current owners in the mid 1970's. Mr Casebeer was a well known artifacts dealer and collector who passed in the late 1970's. He collected in the field most of his early life from the 1920's-1950's when there were no prohibitions against screening for artifacts and Archeology was a hobby, in southern California, mostly in the Channel Islands. He acquired a majority of his collection first hand. It was and is the largest private collection of Chumash material assembled. Most all of the shell and stone beads from that area were purchased by the current owners in large unsorted boxes and were strung by them over the years. This material is archaic and dates between 800 A.D. and 1600 A.D. The stone beads are hand made of steatite, basalt and fine granite and are all, like the clam shell discs, bi-conically hand bow drilled."

I have a few other pieces to share... more pictures to follow.

 

[TomS]

What a very interesting post. Alan and others, thanks for taking the time to share the images!

 

[Michaelshane]

They used flint tipped drills,and quartz sand.

 

[howardeye]

Thank God for Foredom Tools, diamond burs, and discs! I am drooling over all these silver creations and the beads. I am building a string of mammoth ivory beads that resemble teeth and fangs. I am glad they are much softer than stone.

 

[alanfgag]

Here is an old Navajo cuff with modernist lines. Unmarked.

 

[alanfgag]

1930s era tourist trade bracelet: