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Native American jewelry expert Dr. Mark Sublette of Medicine Man Gallery with 25 years experience in the Indian art business gives tips on how to identify authentic antique Navajo Squash Blossom Necklaces. Excellent tutorial for beginning to advanced collectors on the characteristics one looks for when buying Native American old pawn jewelry.
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Native American Indian Jewelry: How to Identify Antique Navajo Squash Blossom Necklaces
Today I'd like to talk to you about very early Navajo or Diné squash blossom necklaces. This is an example of a Navajo squash blossom, and it probably dates anywhere from the 30s or 20s. We know it was collected early on, like in 1941, but it was probably an old piece at that time. The earliest Navajo squash blossoms had very little, if any, turquoise.
Turquoise really didn't start getting put on Native American jewelry until probably around the 1890s. Before that timeframe – and Navajo squashes were made probably as early as 1870s – there were just simple beads with a simple naja.
The naja is this portion right here, which relates to the knot to the Spanish, and it's a crescent shaped moon. Then you have things like this, which are pomegranates, which is also influenced from the Spanish. These early Navajo squash blossom necklaces can be very valuable if you can find one, especially if it's attributed to somebody like Slender Maker, who has a very distinctive style of Navajo squash.
So, what you want to look at for the early antique or old pawn pieces are very little turquoise, and if they are using turquoise, that they have very early bezels. The bezel is what keeps the turquoise stone in place. These are handmade bezels versus being something that's commercially made. Also, you would want to see that the beads (like these beads) are very smooth – that they've been worn and used.
Usage is a very important tool in determining the age of authentic Native American jewelry. One of the things I see continually are Navajo squash blossom necklaces that are brought to me that have old coinage on them, and there might be barberhead quarters or mercuryhead dimes, and the people always assume because they have these early coins that may date from the 1910 or 1930, that it has to be from that timeframe. The reality is that's very rare; I've only seen a couple examples, and they did do this, but it's very, very rare. Most of these, if not almost all, of these Navajo squash blossoms were made in the 1960s and maybe 50s, but generally these things were a reproduction of an earlier type of antique Navajo squash blossom necklace.
So, just because you have a Navajo squash that has early coinage on it does not mean that it's early; it just means the coins are, and that's a very important factor to know. So, when you're dealing with Navajo squash blossoms: simple really relates to being early. The more simple it is, the more design qualities that use ingot (the silver that was made from coinage), then you're probably dealing with an earlier piece.
When the Navajo squash blossoms get between 1900 and before, they get very valuable, so it's important to be able to try to date these vintage squash blossom necklaces before you ever sell one or buy one.
