American Indian Jewelry

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This paragraph is intended as a bit of relevant information about the materials, artists, and terms used in and about our jewelry. The terms silver, sterling silver, and Silver jewelry, and sterling silver jewelry all mean the same thing. Indian Jewelry, Native American jewelry, handmade jewelry, American Indian jewelry, turquoise jewelry, turquoise rings, and sterling silver rings, and some opal jewelry and rings as well as amethyst jewelry are made by American Native Indian artists. The web page order numbers will tell you when a piece of jewelry is not Indian made. Numbers that begin with 'NI' are not Indian made. Order numbers that begin with 'I' are Indian made. There are instances when we are not sure, baring a typographical error we will use 'NI?' for not sure.

The turquoise in our jewelry may be from Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Mexico, Utah, Idaho, California, Nevada, even China; Also possibly from other continents such as Africa and South America
Turquoise is spelled tourquoise and jewelry is spelled jewellery in other countries; [most of Europe].
    The turquoise stones may be stabilized, blocked, enhanced, or otherwise treated; rarely completely natural. Natural untreated turquoise is likely too soft and does not stand up well, it changes color over the years.
    We want to assure that ourlucky customers have the best possible appearance and durability, when purchasing 'Indian Jewelry' from Brierly's Jewelry.
    Some of the stones that may be used used can be in either a solid cabochon or an inlay style. The possibilities are many including malachite, lapis, denim lapis, pink mussel shell, black onyx, jett, mother of pearl, gaspeite, charoite, sugilite, coral, opal, amethyst, and spiny oyster, other colored stones are sometimes used.
    Zuni artists traditionally have used only 4 colors in their inlays, the precise geometric patterns; red [coral], black [onyx or jett], blue [turquoise], white [mother of pearl]. Some of the younger Zuni artists have added other colors; green [malachite], dark blue [lapis lazuli], yellow orange [spiny oyster], several other colors are sometimes chosen.
    Brierlys display and sell opal, amethyst, amber, blue topaz, and garnets in native American jewelry. Some of these stones are man made such as the opals, some of the amethysts, and the amber light. To be sure Indian jewelry has other than stones. A bear claw, coyote claw, porcupine claw, horse hair, and various hides, fur, and feathers are sometimes used.
    The Navajo artists are many, and very talented, their styles vary greatly in their endeavors. These artists do inlay that is much more random in patterns and color combinations. These color combinations and patterns are usually unique to each piece of jewelry.
    Indian jewelry mountings are Sterling Silver,  most  will be marked sterling, or 92.5, which is the US required percentage of silver, in any item, or in the Indian jewelry; this will certify an item as Sterling silver. Some very thin, light weight, pieces may not be marked.
    A popular color combination of gold and silver is being used by some the very well know Indian artists. Tommie Singer's designs  frequently feature gold filled and silver patterns. Darin Bill used gold filled over silver for some outstanding bracelets, Darin is deceased. Bruce Morgan makes beautiful bracelets of Silver with 14 k gold inlay.
    The styles may be Navajo, Zuni, or Hopi. Hopi artists normally do not use stones in their jewelry.
    Most modern Indian jewelry is signed or has a hallmark by the artist, however some of the Indian jewelry made on the reservations may not be so marked. A lack of hallmarks, initials, or signatures doesn't mean it is not authentic!
    In past years a large portion, if not all of the reservation made Indian jewelry was not signed and had no hallmark added.
    There are American Indian jewelry artists, from other tribes, that make southwestern Indian style jewelry. Some of these Indian artists work in the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni styles. Some of the Indian artists have their own unique style of Indian jewelry and southwestern jewelry. The Santo Domengo do mostly bead work.
   Our Brierly's Jewelry  web site  includes southwestern turquoise from United States mines, such as Sleeping Beauty, King's Manassa, Dry Creek, White Buffalo, Hitachi, Bisbee, Turquoise Mountain, Kingman, Wild Horse, and Cripple Creek; there are more. Some of the turquoise is now coming from China; China is the largest turquoise supplier in the world. Africa, South America, and the mid east are also sources of turquoise for jewelry.
    The colors of turquoise in indian jewelry range from a brownish green [Nevada, Arizona, or Chinese] to bright blue [Sleeping Beauty or New Mine] The matrix colors can range from blue to golden brown to black[ iron], sometimes with 'gold' flecks [fools gold is iron pirates]. Lapis also can have the fool's gold flecks, this is very desireable in lapis as well as turquoise.
    Turquoise from the various mines are commonly identified by their color and matrix pattern characteristics, however, there can be turquoise from different mines that have the same colors and many can be matched with older Indian jewelry. There are reports that as many as 70 different sources of southwestern turquoise have been used to make Indian jewelry in the past several decades.
In some instances the style and pattern selection can help identify an unmarked piece of Indian Jewelry. These unmarked older pieces are very hard to identify. American Indian artists rarely copy another artist's designs.
   The description of mine indications used on this page are derived from the personal knowledge and experience of the owner's of Brierly's American Indian Jewelry, along with a lot of research. Opinion and observation play a large role in the turquoise selection and identification process.