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A rare and stunning Perry Shorty “Navajo Pearls”

style Navajo silver bead necklace made of 96 historic “Barber” silver dimes, c. 1999

Here is one of the all-time great jewelry pieces by one of the all-time great Native American jewelry-makers. Renowned Navajo silversmith Perry Shorty (b. 1964) has made only a very limited few, perhaps 10-12 in all, of these splendid and extraordinary coin-silver bead necklaces over the past 35 years and they are wonderful sights to behold; exceptionally beautiful in their form and color, impressive in their substance and weight, mind-blowing in the amount of incredible concentrated craftsmanship, effort and skill required to make them.

And this necklace is made all the more special and rare because Perry himself has personally promised that, as of 2019, he will never make another one. Perry stated this to one of our longtime close colleagues who represents Perry’s jewelry in his Arizona gallery when Perry brought him a similar necklace in November, 2019. At that time Perry stated that it was the last one he would ever make. We bought that necklace from our colleague in 2019 and sold it in 2020. That 2019 necklace was the last one of the four of these amazing dime bead necklaces of Perry’s that we have ever had until we just recently acquired this earlier one.

The unique use of “Coin-Silver” for his most special, high-end pieces has become one of Perry Shorty’s distinguishing artistic trademarks. Although more difficult to work with and considerably costlier than other forms of commercially-available silver, Perry feels that the historic antique American silver coins he uses, primarily “Barber” style dimes, quarters and half dollars are a living link to the past 19th Century classic Navajo silversmithing tradition where such coins were the principal source of silver for the making of early Navajo jewelry. There are two methods that Navajo silversmiths have used historically to work with silver coins. The first method involves first melting the coins down to form a cast ingot-silver “slug” from which the jewelry piece is then formed. The second method is more direct and involves heating, hammering and shaping the very silver coins themselves to form the desired piece of jewelry which is precisely what Perry did here.

“I try to keep things simple. The old smiths didn’t have a lot of tools

and materials to work with, and I like doing it their way.”

-Perry Shorty

At top center, old Navajo silversmithing tools used in making silver beads, "dapping" tools and silversmith's hammer. Middle row, front and back views of "Barber" style silver dime. At bottom center, Perry Shorty giving a silversmithing demonstration at the Hopi Cultural Center, c. 1999. Note the similarity of his hammer to the historic one in the top center photo.

The necklace measures 13 1/2" in length from the top of the leather wrap to the bottom of the silver beads measured while lying flat on a table and it is approximately 27" in circumference all the way around including the 4" long handmade leather wrap and it weighs an impressive 218 grams or 7 3/4 ounces, just shy of a half pound of pure silver goodness. While the necklace has a nice and satisfying weighty feel, it sits and wears very comfortably on the body. The necklace is in completely excellent original condition with no damages and very little wear in evidence despite its 25 or so years of age.

The necklace is unsigned as almost all of Perry’s dime bead necklaces are as there is no really convenient place to sign it, but it is guaranteed to have been made by and purchased directly from Perry Shorty. This necklace is an extraordinary and significant piece in every possible way; a wonderful object of historically authentic and traditionally made contemporary Native jewelry made by one of the most prestigious Native artists in the world to wear and to enjoy today by anyone, man or woman and a wonderful “heirloom” piece to keep for succeeding generations to treasure years into the future.

Large, two-piece Navajo silver beads like the ones in this superb necklace have long been affectionately and accurately referred to as “Navajo Pearls” as seen in the photo above and they have always been some of the most unique, attractive and desirable jewelry ever made around these parts. Perry Shorty’s modern-day “revival” of this important historic form is one of his greatest artistic success stories.

These beads are rare and beautiful precious silver “pearls” from the high and dry Southwestern desert, every bit as

exotic and precious in their own way as any natural gem pearls from any of the deep ocean seas anywhere in the world.

To put it another way, it’s a true “Money” piece, both literally and figuratively.

Price $8,650

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The necklace is composed of 48 large, beautifully-matched large silver beads, all just slightly over 1/2” in diameter and 1/2” in height, made out of a total of 96 individual historic “Barber-Style” American silver dimes which were only made between 1892 and 1916. The process of doing this is so painstaking and so technically and physically demanding that only a very few Navajo silversmiths would ever even attempt to try it. The individual dimes are first heated to red hot then hammered (or dapped) out into a half round form with what is known as a “Dapping” tool as seen below. This is a hard enough procedure to get right once, let alone 96 times as there is much that can go wrong. After all the dimes are evenly hammered out and properly shaped they must all be carefully drilled through their centers for the necklace leather cord to eventually pass through and then they are carefully soldered together to form the spherical beads after which each individual bead is carefully buffed and polished.

Then the beads are strung on a finely hand-cut tanned leather thong and finally the necklace is finished off with a beautifully handmade leather “wrap”. This entire process is a total labor of love and dedication indeed and an incredible expression and display of old-style skill and tradition. One of the most interesting stylistic details of all is the way Perry preserved many of the original markings on the coins and you can see various details of these including portions of the words “United States of America”, the profiled male head on the face of the coin and quite a number of visible dates such

as “1897,1899,1902,1907,1908,1909,1910, 1912,1913,1916, etc. on the silver surfaces of the various dime beads.

Above center, a historic "Navajo Pearls" style silver bead necklace on a young Hopi Indian maiden, 1901.

Photo by Adam Clark Vroman. Photo source and © "Photographer of the Southwest, Adam Clark Vroman", Ward Ritchie Press, 1961, pp. 80.

Only the front faces of the dimes are visible here as they contain the most interesting details, the less interesting reverse sides of the dimes all remain hidden on the interior of the beads. A necklace such as this is rich in historic detail and context. Silver coins were extremely rare in Navajoland between 1892-1916 when these Barber dimes were made and as the only form of “hard money” in an essentially trade economy where most everything was paid for in trade items such as sheep or hides or pinon nuts, silver coins had important purchasing power for critically needed items. For example, according to Numismatist, Sara Weaver, in 1920 a single silver dime could get you a loaf of bread, a pound of beans, 1 1/2 pounds of cornmeal or two pounds of potatoes. Alternatively, you could also get two cups of coffee, a sandwich, two slices of pie, a couple bottles of Coca-Cola or a pair of Hershey’s chocolate bars or two cigars, two boxes of matches or two pounds of nails so they were clearly precious and valuable currency indeed.