Antique Vintage Sterling Coin Silver Native Navajo Turquoise Cuff Bracelet 20.8g

This beautiful piece was made by a very talented Native American silversmith. It features handcrafted silversmith work throughout. Antique Native American jewelry is very rare to find. This is due to these pieces being made for reservation and personal use before the tourist trade became popular. Very few pieces were made and even less survived to today.

The concept of Pawn, Old Pawn, and Dead Pawn Native American Jewelry came to be in the 1800s. During this time, trading posts had become a common place for Native Americans to go and exchange food, tools, and other materials with Colonists. Essentially, banks would loan the shop owners money which was then invested into loans for Native Americans in exchange for their jewelry. When a loan wasn’t repaid, the item became known as either “Old Pawn” or “Dead Pawn.”

Southwest Roots of Turquoise Jewelry

Long before European contact, Indigenous artisans across the American Southwest prized turquoise for its sky-blue color and protective symbolism. Pueblo peoples traded hand-shaped turquoise beads, while early Navajo smiths worked copper and brass. When Spanish silversmithing tools arrived in the 1850s, Native artists merged turquoise with sterling silver, launching the now-iconic Southwest turquoise jewelry tradition sought by collectors worldwide.

Rise of Navajo Silversmithing (late 1800s – mid-1900s)

Atsidi Sani, often called the first Navajo silversmith, learned soldering from Mexican plateros around 1865. By the 1920s trading posts at Gallup and Santa Fe promoted “Navajo turquoise jewelry,” featuring ingot-rolled silver, stamp work, and bezel-set turquoise nuggets. Tourist demand during the Route 66 boom and Fred Harvey railroad line spread Navajo turquoise earrings, cuff bracelets, and bolo ties across America, cementing their place in vintage jewelry collections.

The Navajo Nation sits on 27,000 square miles within the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The Navajo have a rich history and culture and have become known for creating some of the finest sterling silver and turquoise jewelry, incorporating their own traditional motifs with silversmithing. The squash blossom necklace is perhaps one the most famous Navajo styles produced, along with turquoise inlay rings. Turquoise is an important stone in Navajo culture; symbolizing happiness, good fortune, and good health. 

The first Navajo silversmith, Atsidi Sani, was taught around 1865 by a Mexican silversmith. Atsidi Sani in turn taught his four sons, who then started teaching other Navajo artisans. In the beginning, Navajo artisans created sterling silver jewelry for themselves and others in the Navajo Nation. After 1900, with the tourist trade started booming in the Southwest, and Navajo artisans started commercially producing silver and turquoise jewelry and selling it through the various trading posts.