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A very fine historic Navajo cast ingot-silver
and turquoise cuff bracelet, c. 1920's-1930's
Here is everything one could ever want in a historic Navajo bracelet; a great traditional design, a nice
solid weight of finely cast ingot-silver, beautifully detailed repoussee, stamp and chisel work, a fine spiderweb
turquoise stone and a nice, soft, well-aged patina. Game, set match!
The bracelet was made by an obviously very skilled unknown Navajo silversmith in the painstaking traditional manner of melting down American and/or Mexican silver coins and casting the molten red-hot silver into an rough ingot-silver “slug” which was then subsequently hammered out to form the bracelet’s silver shank to which the various design features were then applied. The design features a small central bright blue oval-shaped spiderweb turquoise stone, possibly from the famed Godber-Burnham Mine in Nevada, set in a nicely-serrated silver bezel and flanked on both sides by large elongated oval-shaped repouseed and elaborately stamp worked panels with beautiful chisel worked indentions all the way around their outside perimeters.
Casting Coin Ingot-Silver
There are two slightly different traditional Navajo silversmithing methods of making a bracelet with Coin Ingot-Silver and both are difficult, painstaking and nearly unbearable high-temperature techniques to master. In the first method, which was used to make this bracelet, a quantity of American and/or Mexican silver coins such as those pictured here are first melted down to red-hot molten metal which is then cast into an ingot-silver “slug” like the one shown at below right. Later, the silver slug is reheated again and again and repeatedly annealed and hammered out to form the shape of the bracelet’s silver shank to which the various decorative stamp, chisel , repoussee and filework designs and stones are subsequently applied after which the bracelet is then buffed and finished.
The bracelet measures 1 1/4" in continuous width all the way around. The inner circumference end-to-end is 5 7/8" and the gap between the terminals is between 1 3/16" and 1 1/4" for a total interior circumference of between
7 1/16" and 7 1/8". The bracelet’s silver shank is just slightly over 1/16" in thickness and the bracelet weighs a very substantial, yet quite comfortable to wear 109 grams or 3 7/8 ounces and it is in excellent original vintage condition with some age-appropriate wear and a nice, soft patina. The bracelet is unmarked for its maker as befits its early 20th Century age and origin.
All in all, this is a fine, old, early, skillfully-crafted, mighty handsome devil of a bracelet. A precious piece that
is sure to make your friends a fair bit jealous and your detractors all the more unhappy since it is you and not they who had the wisdom and good taste to acquire this excellent piece.
SOLD
The central turquoise stone is also accented on the top and bottom by matching panels of three stamp work
design motifs which are repeated at the outside edges of the repoussed panels. Overall, it’s a beautifully symmetrical, complex design treatment with beautiful texturing and interesting relief from the raised repousseed panels and indented chisel work. There is also a very interesting and nicely-textured design treatment done along the entire outside edges of both sides of the bracelet consisting of a continuous row of finely applied parallel diagonal stamps which form a lovely and pleasing pattern of slight indentions and alternating raised ridges.
In the second process, the red-hot molten silver is not cast into a silver “slug”, but poured into an already carved volcanic tufa-stone mold to form the shape of the bracelet’s shank after which designs and/or stones are applied. This method is known as “tufa-casting”. In earlier days, coins were the sole source of silver available to the Navajo. Later, pre-cast coin silver and Sterling silver slugs became available through traders and still later through the present-day, pre-made silver casting grains. No matter the particulars of method or materials used, silver casting is still a demanding and difficult process, definitely not for the faint of heart.
Very rarely, one can find a Navajo bracelet which was made directly from heated and hammered-out silver coins without first casting
the melted silver into a slug or mold. A piece made with this method would be a “coin-silver” piece, but not an “ingot-silver” piece.