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Two outstanding masterpiece Mark Chee Navajo cast ingot-silver and Lone Mountain, Nevada spiderweb turquoise bracelets, c. 1950’s-60’s

The name of the now world-famous Santa Fe-based historic Navajo silversmith, Mark Chee (1905-1981) and the term “masterpiece" are words you can expect to see fairly regularly together since Chee was such an extraordinary master silversmith but when you also throw the words “Lone Mountain, Nevada spiderweb turquoise” into the mix then the temperature rises immediately and very dramatically.

Here we have an extraordinary and pretty much unprecedented, offering of not one, but two perfectly crafted and totally stunning historic Mark Chee silver bracelets each set with nine very nicely-matched, high-grade Lone Mountain, Nevada spiderweb stones. It’s hard enough to find one of these extremely rare birds, let alone two at the same time.

Mark Chee at his bench, Santa Fe, c. 1940’s.

Photo © Frasher’s Foto Postcards, Pasadena, CA

Bracelet #1

The bracelet’s quite thick cast-ingot silver shank measures 1/8" to 3/16" in thickness all the way around and the shank is precisely 1/2" in continuous width all the way around. The bracelet is sized for the smaller wrist and the size is completely non-adjustable. The bracelet’s interior circumference end-to-end is 5” and the gap between the terminals is 1" for a total interior circumference of 6". The bracelet weighs a substantial, yet quite comfortable to wear 97 grams or 3 3/8 ounces. The bracelet and stones are all in excellent original condition particularly for its 60-70 or so years of age.

The largest center stone in the bracelet measures some 7/16" in height and 3/8" in width and the other eight stones are graduated smaller in size down to 1/4" by 3/16" for the smallest two end stones. None of the nine turquoise stones are cracked or chipped and there is only some minimal age-appropriate wear to the silver in the form a couple of small nicks and scratches. The bracelets end terminals are nicely decorated with some beautifully restrained and elegant stampwork designs. The bracelet is properly and very handsomely signed with a fine rendition of Mark Chee’s customary signature hallmark of a bird’s head in profile enclosing his last name, “ChEE”. The bracelet has the beautiful, soft, almost glowing patina that cast ingot silver can acquire with age and wear.

Bracelet #2

The bracelet’s most impressively thick cast-ingot silver shank measures 1/8" to 3/16" in thickness all the way around and the shank is 5/8" in continuous width all the way around. This bracelet is also sized for the smaller wrist and the size is completely non-adjustable. The bracelet’s interior circumference end-to-end is 5 3/16" and the gap between the terminals is 13/16" for a total interior circumference of 6". The bracelet weighs a very impressive, yet quite comfortable to wear 117 grams or 4 ounces. The bracelet and stones are all in excellent original condition particularly for its 60-70 or so years of age.

The largest center stone in the bracelet measures some 7/16" in height and 3/8" in width and the other eight stones are graduated smaller in size down to 1/4" by 3/16" for the smallest two end stones. None of the nine turquoise stones are cracked or chipped and there is only some minimal age-appropriate wear to the silver in the form a couple of small nicks and scratches. The bracelets terminals are very beautifully and strikingly decorated with dome perfectly executed very deeply-chiseled designs. The bracelet is also properly and very handsomely signed with a fine rendition of Mark Chee’s customary signature hallmark of a bird’s head in profile enclosing his last name, “ChEE”. This bracelet also has the beautiful, soft, almost glowing patina ingot silver acquires with age and wear.

These two outstanding bracelets are every bit as good as it ever gets in our Southwestern Native art neck of the woods. A vintage Mark Chee silver and Lone Mountain turquoise bracelet is the pure 24 Karat solid “Gold standard” of Navajo silverwork, to put it another way. And to have two such silver “Golden Oldies” is simply out of this world. Anyone would be extremely fortunate indeed to be the lucky owner, wearer and admirer of either one or especially nearly identical in size and fit, but they are not a precisely matched pair. They are more fascinating for this in our view, in that while they have many marvelous similarities they also have some unique and remarkably distinct artistic differences in expression which makes the combination of the two pieces together that much more compelling.

Price $5,950/6,250 each

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for both bracelets

These eye-popping stones are so vivid and brilliant in person that it might actually help to wear sunglasses while wearing this bracelet, even at night. Lone Mountain turquoise is justly world-renowned for its beautiful, saturated, intense blue color, it’s lovely dendrite-like spiderwebbing and for keeping its intense color over time. It is now the second-most expensive turquoise variety in the world today, second only to Lander Blue due to the skyrocketing demand for its very limited supply from a voracious horde of collectors, dealers and jewelry-makers.

There are no less than nine beautiful, hand-shaped, high-grade, matching, nicely graduated in size Lone Mountain spiderweb stones in each of these bracelets, a total of perhaps 40-50 carats in all for each one. With high-grade, finished, cut Lone Mountain spiderweb stones such as these priced in the range of $100-$125 per carat today, the math here is fairly compelling.

The eighteen turquoise stones are all set in their own individual old-style plain silver “foldover” type deep silver bezels and all the stones on both bracelets are beautifully accentuated by eight pairs of interspersed large applied round silver “raindrops” and bracelet #1 has an additional applied silver “raindrop” on both ends of the row of stones for a total of eighteen in all. All of the nine stones in both bracelets are set in a vertical orientation. On both sides of the center panel of turquoise stones and silver raindrops, the outer end sections of the bracelet’s shank are strikingly decorated with beautiful deep stampworked or chisel-worked designs. Mark Chee was well known for his intense, heavy silverwork and his use of the finest stones and these bracelets deliver in both these departments in spades.

Lone Mountain Turquoise

This mine once produced a great variety of turquoise, included some of the finest examples of spider web turquoise as well as clear, deep-blue stones. Lone Mountain turquoise has always been noted for holding its color. Among all “classic” Southwestern turquoise, only Lander Blue is more valuable. A rare occurrence has been the “fossil turquoise” found in this mine. The fossil is of a crinoid stem. The Lone Mountain mine consists of a series of haphazard tunnels dug by miners chasing the veins of turquoise. The mine was claimed by Lee Hand in 1920 first as the Blue Jay Mining Lode and later, after seeing that so many mines had been named Blue Jay, Hand changed the mine’s name to Lone Mountain. In the 1960’s Lone Mountain was converted to a small open pit operations by Menliss Winfield. It continues to be mined in this fashion today. In 1979, I purchased Lone Mountain with the King family of Austin, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have had different partners over the years and the property has only been mined 6 over the last 28 years. The reason for this is the expense of mining and the regulations for small mine owners, makes it very difficult to be profitable. But with the value of the classic American turquoise mines being so great, it is feasible for this great mine to once again be of great value.