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A very beautiful and very finely-crafted historic Navajo copper cuff bracelet, c.1920

THE EARLIEST NAVAJO BRACELETS were not made of silver, they were made of copper and brass. These common metals

in the form of old cast-off copper kettles, brass pots and scavenged copper telegraph wire and pennies were far cheaper and easier to come by in the remote reaches of Navajoland than precious silver. Not many Navajo silversmiths continued working with copper after silver became more generally available so early 20th Century Copper brackets like these are quite rare and difficult to come by today and they are both wonderful pieces of Navajo jewelry and fascinating and unique relics of Navajo cultural history.

Most of these pieces were made in the more remote reaches of the Navajo Reservation where silver was harder to obtain and many people simply could not afford to work with it. One of these regions is the Oljato area a few miles south of Navajo Mountain on the Arizona/Utah border. Years ago, we purchased part of the original collection of the old Wetherill family trading post at Oljato which contained many pieces of Navajo copper jewelry which had all been made locally and this bracelet very strongly resembles some of the pieces in that collection and might possibly have been made by one of the same Navajo silversmiths.

At left, a traditional Navajo silversmith at work, c. 1920. At right, Navajo Mountain. In the remote and rugged country around Navajo Mountain, the use of scavenged copper for making jewelry persisted longer than it did elsewhere in Navajoland.

Right photo source and © Wikipedia

Since this piece was made years before Navajo silversmiths began signing their pieces, we will never know who made it, but he obviously had considerable skill and experience and this bracelet is most finely crafted and copper is notoriously more difficult to work with than silver particularly in primitive conditions as its melting point is some 200 degrees higher and it is a harder metal to work with than silver. Copper measures 3 on the standard Mohs metal hardness scale and silver is 2.5 which makes copper that much more difficult to heat, hammer and stamp. But, even though it is more problematic to work with than silver technically, artistically, copper metal more than makes up for its difficulty by being wonderfully expressive due to its beautiful reddish-brown color and the lovely way it patinates with age as you can clearly see here with this bracelet.

The bracelet is most beautifully crafted with very finely and precisely applied chisel work and stamp work. There are three parallel rows of ridged stamp work designs running along the entire length of the bracelet. In a lovely and subtle touch, the repeating stamped designs on the two outer borders both face in one direction while the repeating stamped designs in the inner center row face in the opposite way which provides a great dynamic visual tension and sense of movement. The two large areas between the outer and inner stampwork rows were left smooth and undecorated and are lightly domed up or repoussed whcih provides a nice sculptural aspect. This piece was clearly artistically and technically well made by an imaginative, experienced and expert silversmith.

The bracelet measures 1 3/16" in continuous width all the way around. The inner circumference is 5 1/2" and the gap between the terminals is 1 1/8" for a total interior circumference of 6 5/8". The bracelet weighs a substantial, but quite comfortable and easy to wear 52 grams or 1 7/8 ounces. It is in excellent original condition overall and has developed

a fine, deep, rich patina over its century or so of age. There is a tiny amount of what appears to be old polishing residue here and there and we would leave this completely alone, but it could be easily removed, if desired.

This bracelet is a distinctively beautiful piece of jewelry and a fascinating piece of Southwestern history

all wrapped up in one very handsome package at a very attractive price.

SOLD