This is a much-loved Navajo ring which my mother bought using the employee discount she received from the saddlery/tack shop where she worked in the early 1970s. (The shop closed in 1977.) The shop also had a sideline in Native American jewelry. The shop owners went to New Mexico and Arizona every winter and bought jewelry from trading posts and directly from the artists. I don’t know if the ring was made any earlier than the 70s, I just know that’s when my mother brought it home from work.
Does it look as though it was made in the 60s-70s?
Above all, what kind of turquoise is this?
I’m curious about the value at present. But honestly the value to me comes from the heart because I remember my mother bringing it home and showing it to me when she’d first bought it.
The stone is darker than it looks here. It’s fairly uniform except where it peaks at the top of the left-hand stone, where it lightens a little.
It’s polished but not glassy. [url=https://imgur.com/9itcIKy][/url]
I’m still learning about the different mines in various states and what colors and textures of turquoise they produced, and now I am really looking at stones. It occurred to me to pull out this ring and find out more about the stones in it because I always loved the black swirls of matrix through the deep blue.
Also, putting that bracelet I bought mistakenly with the color-enhanced stones next to this really brought home the difference between a real stone and a color-enhanced stone. The real stone has a kind of depth and subtle variation of color. I should have known better, just from owning Mom’s ring.
This looks very similar in style and turquoise color & quality to the set I am about to post about which was also purchased in the '70’s from a guy who worked for the BIA.
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