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An extremely elegant old-school Navajo ingot-silver and Arizona Rainbow petrified wood bracelet, c.1920’s
This one is a real old-style beauty. The anonymous Navajo silversmith who made this piece really knew his business.
He was very likely a long-experienced older man steeped in the turn of the century traditions of classic Navajo silversmithing. This is the kind of piece that in some ways looks so simple and refined that upon first glance one doesn’t necessarily see how great it is, but then comes the instant double take and the “WOW, That’s really great” when the realization actually hits you. The understated elegance and restrained beauty of this piece eschews bells and whistles
and may not be as flashy on the surface as some, but underestimate it you should not. This is the real old-school deal.
The bracelet’s sleek cast ingot-silver shank made from melted-down American and/or Mexican silver coins is decorated on both sides with very refined, elegant crescent-shaped stampwork designs and of course this is all teed up to feature and accentuate the gorgeous large oval-shaped “picture” Arizona Rainbow petrified wood stone which beautifully captures the marvelous rich colors of the Southwestern desert landscape. Most of this stone is found in the area of The Petrified Forest near Holbrook in Eastern Arizona. This piece of stone is approximately 225 million years old and dates from the Triassic Period which is known as the "Dawn of the Dinosaurs" as it predates by some 120 million years the Jurassic Period when much larger dinosaurs, such as the fearsome Tyrannosaurus Rex ruled the earth.
The petrified wood stone itself measures 1 3/4” in length and is 1 1/4” in width. The stone is very nicely set in an old-style “foldover” type silver bezel which is perfectly accentuated by a superbly-made, very finely hand-twisted silver wire bezel surround. It’s a superbly done and absolutely stunning overall presentation. We are knowledgably guess-timating the bracelet’s age at around the 1920’s from the old-style craftsmanship and technique, but it could possibly be ten years earlier or ten years later, 1910’s to 1930’s.
The bracelet measures 1 1/2” in width at its widest center point and tapers down to just under 1/2” in width at the terminal ends. The inner circumference end-to-end is 5 3/4” and the gap between the terminals is 11/4” for a total interior circumference of 7”. The bracelet has a very nice and satisfying weight of 76 grams or 2 5/8 ounces and a delightful smooth feel on the wrist. The bracelet is in excellent original condition overall with some age-appropriate nicks and wear and a beautiful, just-right surface patina and a wonderful, bright "whitish" color to the ingot silver which almost appears to glow. There is some very slight, barely noticeable abrasion to a small area of the stone.
We’ll keep this discussion fairly brief and just let this piece speak mainly for itself. What we will add as a final thought
is our opinion that this one is most certainly “the kind”. You don’t see precious older pieces like this very much anymore and, truth be told, you probably won’t be seeing this particular one for very long either unless you do the right thing.
Price $3,250
View of the trunks of ancient trees in The Petrified Forest near Holbrook, Arizona
Photo source and © Arizona Highways Magazine
The bracelet pictured with a specimen piece of Arizona
Rainbow Petrified wood, circa 225 million years ago.