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A rare and beautiful historic Roger Skeet, Jr. Navajo Copper cuff bracelet, C.G. Wallace Trading Post, Zuni Pueblo, NM, c.1940’s-50’s
Roger Skeet, jr. (B.1933) was basically born in a Southwestern Indian trading post with a silversmith’s hammer
in his tiny hands. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but not much of one.
It is not at all an exaggeration to say that he learned to make silver literally at his Father’s knee. His father, the renowned Navajo silversmith, Roger Skeet, Sr. (1900-1959) was one of the famed Southwest Indian trader, C.G. Wallace’s primary in-house Navajo silversmiths along with such other accomplished luminaries as Austin Wilson, William Goodluck and Etsitty Tsosie. Skeet Sr. worked for Wallace at his landmark trading post located at the Zuni Pueblo in far Western New Mexico for approximately 30 years from the late 1920’s until his death in 1959. Roger Skeet, Jr. was born there in 1933 and he began making silver alongside his Father in Wallace’s trading post as an eight year-old boy. The silverwork of both the Skeets is quite similar, clean-lined and very traditionally-crafted but with a distinctly modern sensibility and always extremely fine detailing. Roger Skeet, Sr. never signed his pieces while Roger Skeet, Jr. used a simple hallmark of his capital letter initials “RS” as on this bracelet.
All that said, Roget Skeet, Jr. clearly did not have too many problems making this beautiful bracelet.
The artistic imagination and technical skill displayed here are quite remarkable; the wide cuff is beautifully and sparingly decorated with restrained stampwork designs. The spareness of the repeating decorative designs around
the bracelet’s center and outside edges and the wide open spaces of the copper cuff have a distinctively Modernist streamlined look, in much the same way as the Navajo jewelry being produced nearby at Fort Wingate, New Mexico
by Ambrose Roanhorse’s Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild during the same time period does. Skeet Jr. was very well acquainted with these silversmiths and it is quite possible that he might very well have made some pieces for the Navajo Guild himself during these years.
The bracelet measures a very good-sized 2" in continuous width all the way around. The bracelet’s inner
circumference end-to-end is 5 3/8" and the gap between the terminals is 1 1/8" for a total interior circumference
of 6 1/2". The bracelet weighs an extremely comfortable 51 grams or 1 3/4 ounces and it is in completely excellent original condition with a fine nicely-aged fairly dark and rich patina to the copper metal. The bracelet is properly signed with Roger Skeet, Jr.’s customary “RS” initials hallmark on the interior.
Interestingly, this is the only copper bracelet we have ever seen made by Roger Skeet, Jr. and its uniqueness
indicates that it might possibly have been a special commission for one of C.G. Wallace’s important and knowledgable clients. This marvelous and distinctive bracelet is an unusual and rare prize by one of the Southwest’s most accomplished Native American jewelry artists; it is an extremely easy and satisfying piece to wear and looks just wonderful in any situation. It’s a great-looking simply can’t lose classic old-style standout piece by a talented old-style silversmith working at a deservedly famous iconic old-style Indian Trading Post, a sure-fire winning combination any way you look at it, then and now!
Price $1,450
Above, view of Navajo Mountain on the Arizona/Utah border. 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
Above, C.G. Wallace with some of his Native silversmiths at his trading post at Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, c. 1920's.
Photo source and © Sotheby Parke Bernet
The intentional use of copper in this bracelet is a deliberate “Revival” style throwback to the very earliest years of Navajo and Pueblo silversmithing when using copper and brass for making jewelry well predated silver by 20 years or so in the latter half of the 19th Century; old copper pots and pans, brass tea kettles and copper telegraph wire were far easier to obtain and scavenge and infinitely cheaper than rare precious expensive silver which had to be purchased at dear prices and in the far flung more remote reaches of the great Navajo reservation usually not available at all.
The use of copper persisted until well into the 1920’s in the more remote areas of the reservation around Navajo Mountain and Monument Valley in far Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. Copper saw a brief revival in the 1940’s and 1950’s when this bracelet was made and again in the late 1980’s when traditionally-oriented Navajo silversmiths such as Mckee Platero and Pueblo smiths like Greg Lewis frequently worked with it, but for the most part Native silversmiths generally prefer not to work with it, as it is harder to work with than silver, it has a considerably higher melting point and the metal itself is somewhat harder on the Mohs standard metal hardness scale making it that much harder to hammer, shape and stamp the the softer silver.
