Flea Market ring needs repair and hallmark ID

Hi Paula,

I recently picked up this ring at a flea market and would like to get it repaired. There is a piece of corral missing and on the second tip a silver ball is gone.

I remember reading an article you had about someone that did jewelry repair and would like your opinion on where I should send it.

Also, the mark inside is a D Sterling C Can you tell me who designed this ring?

Thanks for your help and I love reading all your posts on Native American jewelry,

Sandy

Hi Sandy,

I’ve already replied to you with the repair contact which is also in this article about my bracelet repair.

As far as the hallmark, I don’t know for sure so I thought I’d post the ring so others could suggest possibilities.  I’ve seen some similar items by the Navajo family with the last name Clark but I’d be guessing. Maybe someone else recognizes the hallmark and work definitively.

Paula

Repair of my Beloved Chester Mahooty Inlay Bracelet

I received a beautiful old bracelet years ago and sadly one day a piece of inlay disappeared.  I was nervous about shipping the bracelet to someone to fix………that is until I met Diane at Old Town Trading Co. (see contact info at the end of the article.)

Here is my personal repair story with a happy happy ending.

Hi Diane,

I have a special inlay bracelet that is missing one piece of inlay which I think might be ivory – cream colored, not white. What do you think? What would it cost to repair this one? Paula

Chester Mahooty bracelet with missing inlay piece.

Hi Paula,

You’re bracelet is so unusual – I just love it! We usually charge about $20 to replace 1 missing stone. But there are many factors that affect that price:

size  – a big stone costs more

type – rare stones like red coral or Bisbee turquoise cost more

number of stones being replaced – 10 needlepoint stones in the same piece might cost only $15 per stone

whether the customer still has the original stone – that might only be $10 for resetting

whether or not any additional work needs to be done in order to repair the setting.

That’s why we always like to examine a piece before giving a firm quote. Of course there is also the shipping charges back and forth that a customer needs to pay.

For your piece, we don’t have ivory, and I’m not sure we could get it. There are, however, some shells that have a creamy appearance and might work nicely in this instance. I believe we also have a white coral that has that creamier appearance, without going into the orange tones. If you can get a piece of ivory, we can cut it and set it. I can see that your center coral has a little issue, too. If it’s not uneven on the surface, it might not be a problem, but if you’d want us to replace that, it would be $25 (red coral is expensive, but we do use the real thing – not dyed).

Hi again Diane,

The bracelet is a 1960s or early 1970s Zuni inlay cuff by the late Chester Mahooty.

On the bracelet, the only thing I want done is to have the one cream piece of missing inlay replaced. Maybe it was ivory (I think ivory was still available at the time he made this as was the tortoise shell that is also in the piece). Since ivory isn’t an option, you suggested using a similar ivory colored shell to match the piece on the opposite side? You’ll see he used cream and white inlay but it is the cream piece that is missing.

I do not want the chipped red coral circle at the top of his tail repaired– just leave it as is. And please don’t buff or polish the piece. I want to keep the patina as is. (See my recent post about cleaning vintage jewelry.)

Hi Paula,

Your bracelet arrived here safe and sound.

First, I feel very clear on what you want for your bracelet, which is a beauty! I love the stamped sides. We will do our best to match with something. The guys are willing to look through their personal stashes to see what they can come up with. Henry will do the inlay a little differently to avoid any errant polishing. They usually would grind the surface of the stone after setting it into the bracelet, but he will cut and finish the stone completely out of the setting, then glue it in. The stone will be a little thinner (depth-wise, but you won’t see it) than doing it the regular way, but this will ensure that the bracelet never gets near the grinder. I do need to mention that there is a crack in the bird’s head, kind of through his eye and cheek, another crack in the turquoise chest, the chip previously mentioned in the coral belly, and a couple of other teeny tiny chips and cracks. Nothing unusual nor in need of repair – I just like to mention these things before it goes back into the shop so you’re aware. I’ll have the guys alert me if they see any weak settings, but I don’t believe they will. The rest of the settings look very good to me.

Fitting the stone

Hi Diane !!!

I received my bracelet and I am so happy. Thank you so much for your good care and Henry’s excellent work !  I have more items to send you. Paula

Old Town Trading Company has been in business in Scottsdale, AZ for 26 years and has 2 Native American artists who perform expert repairs and renovations to new and vintage pieces.

Old Town Trading Co. / Jewels of the West

4009 N. Brown Avenue

Scottsdale, AZ  85251

480-970-8065

Attn: Diane

jewelsofthewest@qwestoffice.net

Cleaning Vintage Native American Jewelry

We often get vintage pieces in that have a wonderful patina but also a dash of Alfredo sauce or leftover silver polish in the nooks and crannies.

So how do we clean while preserving the endearing patina?

When we sell vintage pieces, we usually just leave them as is so the new owner can clean them to their personal taste.

But if there is dirt and debris in the stamping or silver work, we remove that. Usually a dry toothbrush and a wooden toothpick is all that is needed.

Loosen debris with a wooden toothpick

Brush with a dry toothbrush

Brushed clean

With my personal more contemporary sterling silver pieces (no stones), if I want to restore a brilliant shine, I either buff with a polishing cloth or use the procedure outlined in “Richard’s Method”.

IMPORTANT NOTE !! Great care should be taken when cleaning any sterling silver piece with stones. The pieces should NEVER be soaked as this would swell the backing (which is often sawdust or leather) and pop the stones out of their settings or damage them.

For sterling silver jewelry with stones and for pieces that I want to retain much of the vintage patina, I usually use a simple wash, dry and light hand buff combo. I use ordinary liquid hand soap (not antibacterial – something more like liquid Ivory) on a cloth or soft toothbrush to loosen debris and clean both the front and back of bracelets and pendants.  Then I rinse it well but carefully, avoiding the stone settings.  I follow this with a thorough drying and then token hand buffing with a silver polishing cloth. I stop at the point where the item is clean but still has its character.

I use a polishing cloth to maintain the shine in my new beads but if the oxidation gets ahead of me, I spritz them with Windex, taking care not to use too much because I don’t want it to run into the holes. I lightly spritz one section and then wipe right away. Less is more.

Because Old Town Trading Company was in the process of restringing an old squash blossom necklace for me (the subject of a future blog on repair), the topic of cleaning came up and here is what Diane of OTTP said:

While your necklace is disassembled, we’d like to wash the naja and blossoms. As you are definitely in favor of original patina, I want to explain this and get your approval first. I meet many, many people who do not want the surface of their silver touched in any way, not even to be cleaned. To me, there is a big difference in being “cleaned”, being “polished”, and being “buffed”. It’s mostly semantics, but I think there is a lot of confusion about what might be the best way to treat a piece of jewelry.

To me, buffing is something done with a buffing machine, in the shop. Buffing actually smooths the surface of the silver, and removes all those tiny fine lines and scratches that create the soft, beautiful look of a well worn piece. With very few exceptions, I don’t like to see anything buffed. The exceptions would be for pieces that are very contemporary or have a very bad scratch that detracts from the piece. A very few people like their pieces buffed smooth, regardless of the age or history of the piece.

Tiny fine lines and scratches can be replicated by working the surface with steel wool, but a trained eye will spot it every time. It can look nice, but it’s not “patina”… If a piece must be hot soldered for a repair, it must go through the buffing process – no way around it. Our smiths are awesome, but that is one of their biggest challenges – hot soldering on a vintage piece and retaining the “look”.

Polishing is using a chemical agent to clean the blackened tarnish from a piece of silver. Polishing (in my phraseology) doesn’t remove the scratches at all, but it can remove the oxidation that may have been applied to enhance the design of a piece. Oxidation can be very successfully reapplied (chemically) BUT most polishes will leave nasty residues in all the lovely details of this beautiful handmade stuff. The residue turns white or green or pink.  One of the few chemical “polishers” that doesn’t leave a residue (Tarnax) will actually dissolve turquoise and coral, among other things. I can’t tell you how many Tarnax victims we’ve repaired here. Polishing with any of this chemical stuff is really intended only for flatter manufactured pieces, like silverware, and even then, just cleaning it will frequently work better.

So, my favorite and most suggested technique is cleaning. A good washing (done properly, of course) will remove all the gunk, label residue, polish residue, grime, dust, cookie dough (yes we’ve removed that) and any other surface stuff that “shouldn’t be there”. The result is a piece that still has all the fine scratches, oxidation, and beauty (the “patina”) of an old piece, but it will show with a beautiful true silver glow, instead of a flat yellow gray appearance. In my opinion, it really enhances the piece.

We generally wash using the Tide Detergent technique (listed in the comments following the Richard’s Method article) and a soft toothbrush. Then we dry very thoroughly with a cloth which creates just a little bit of a glow.

We don’t wash beads, because they’re too hard to dry out properly. We would wipe them with a cotton glove only.

What is my scrap sterling silver jewelry worth?

What determines that jewelry is scrap? It depends on whether something is worthwhile to fix, has sentimental value, whether it is collectible, hallmarked, and other factors. 

Sterling Silver Scrap Native American Jewelry

When you are selling broken or otherwise unsalable sterling silver jewelry, you might be offered scrap price or melt value for the items.

And even if you have undamaged Native American jewelry and you take it to a pawn shop where the pawn broker isn’t interested in or knowledgeable about the value of Native American jewelry, you will likely be offered melt value.

Here’s how you can figure the melt value of your jewelry.

First be sure the items are sterling silver.  If you don’t have an acid test kit yourself, you can take the items to a jeweler to test for you.

Next you’d weigh the items. If there are a lot of stones or materials other than the sterling silver, you could either remove those so you’d get a more accurate sterling silver weight OR you could estimate how much of the weight is stone.  This will vary depending on the piece so you can make your guesstimate and likely the pawn shop owner will make his.

For an example, if a heavy silver bracelet that weighs 125 grams  has stones estimated to be 30% of the weight of the bracelet, then you would have 70% of the weight as sterling silver or 87.5 grams.

125 gram bracelet x .7 = 87.5 grams

Old bracelet used as an example

Sterling Silver Bar – 92.5% Silver
This bar happens to weigh 24.8 Troy Ounces

But sterling silver is only 92.5% silver, so of the 87.5 grams, only 80.9 grams are silver.

87.5 grams of sterling silver x .925 = 80.9 grams of silver

Pure silver bar
Ag is the chemical element symbol for Silver
This bar of silver happens to weigh 100 Troy Ounces

Silver is measured by troy ounces and there are 31.1 grams in a troy ounce. So in 80.9 grams of silver, you would have 2.6 troy ounces of silver.

80.9 grams divided by 31.1 grams per ounce = 2.6 troy ounces of silver

It costs to have sterling silver melted and purified, so if silver is running, say $30 an ounce, you might be offered $30 or less per ounce.

2.6 troy ounces of silver x $30 per troy ounce = $78.

One of the fans broke off my cuff watch bracelet – can it be repaired?

Here is another installment in our Native American jewelry repair series with Old Town Trading Co.

Question:

One of the silver fans broke off of my watch bracelet.  Can it be repaired?

Answer:

Sure.  Pieces of silver are joined by soldering.  A process called “hot” soldering uses solder made of silver.  “Cold” soldering uses solder made of lead.  Hot soldering is the best method by far for jewelry repair, especially if the piece will have any kind of pressure on it, like a watch bracelet fan or belt buckle pin.  Hot soldering involves heating both the bracelet and the separate fan to very high temperatures, then applying solder and flux (kind of like “metal glue”) to flow between the pieces along the joint.  Cold soldering is a similar process, but the pieces do not have to be heated to as high a temperature.  Hot soldering is routinely used to build a new piece of jewelry, but it is extremely difficult to use successfully for repairs.

Question:

Why can’t my own jeweler solder the piece?

Answer:
Some jewelers may attempt to use cold solder for repair, but it does not attach with nearly the strength of a hot solder repair.  Also, the cold soldering process still requires heat.  Turquoise and many of the other stones and shells routinely used in Native American jewelry are very sensitive to heat, and can actually burn out of the setting.  We do find that most jewelers are honest with their customers and will decline to attempt any repair of this type.

Question:

How do your silversmiths keep the stones from burning?

Answer:

They use a combination of removing any stones that will be near the heated area, and “packing” the rest to keep them cool.  After the soldering is finished, all stones that were removed must be replaced.  We try to remove as few stones as possible during repair to be more cost effective and lessen the chance of any stones breaking during removal.

Question:

What if I’ve lost the fan piece entirely?

Answer:

We can duplicate just about anything.  The silversmiths would cut a matching piece and attach it.

Question:

Can you describe the repair that is pictured?

Answer:

This watch bracelet was missing one fan.  Also, the stones had sunk down into their bezel settings.  Our silversmith made a new fan, removed all of the stones from the band, and soldered the new fan in place.  After the bracelet was oxidized and polished, the silversmith reset the stones and attached the watch into its spot.  This repair cost $125.00.  The watch bracelet is ready to wear and enjoy again!

Cuff watch bracelet with fan replaced

Old Town Trading Company has been in business in Scottsdale, AZ for 26 years and has 2 Native American artists who perform expert repairs and renovations to new and vintage pieces.

Old Town Trading Co. / Jewels of the West

4009 N. Brown Avenue

Scottsdale, AZ  85251
480-970-8065

Attn: Diane
jewelsofthewest@qwestoffice.net

Native American Jewelry Repair – Vintage Inlay Belt Buckle

This is the first in a series of repair articles that I am writing in conjunction with Diane from Old Town Trading Co. in Scottsdale, AZ.  See contact information at the end of this article. We appreciate OTTC’s help and expertise in this series.

Read the introductory article “Repair and Restoration of Native American Jewelry”

 

Question:

Is it possible to repair or restore Native American jewelry?

 

Answer:

Yes, we have Native American Silversmiths working for us here on premises, who are accomplished artisans and expert repair people.  We service repairs for customers and jewelers all over the United States.

Question:

How can we find out what you can do and how much it will cost?

Answer:

You can photograph or scan your jewelry and email the picture to us.  We can usually give you an idea of the repair needed and a ballpark estimate from your photo.  If you decide to proceed, you then mail your jewelry to us.  Once we receive the item and have a chance to thoroughly inspect it we call you with a firm price for the repairs.

Question:

Can you outline the procedure for this inlay buckle repair?

Inlay buckle showing missing pieces.

Answer:

From the customer’s picture, we saw that 7 pieces of coral and shell were missing.  An estimate for this repair was $85.00 plus $15 to return ship and insure.  However, once we received the buckle, we found that the back of the buckle had serious cracks forming in the silver at two edges.  It looked like the buckle had flexed back at that point, causing the tearing to begin.  All of the missing stones were right on top of the bend – that’s no doubt why they popped out.

 

Back of buckle showing stress cracks from bending.

Question:

What do you do at that point?

 

Answer:

Simply replacing the missing stones was still an option.  However, once metal has bent, it “wants” to bend in that very same spot again, causing further damage to the piece.  We suggested to the owner that our silversmith could solder a thicker sheet of silver to the back of the buckle, making it much stronger and resistant to any further flexing. 

 

Question:

How is that done?

 

Answer:

Our silversmith removes all of the stones from the front, as well as all of the pieces from the back (the buckle bar, pin, and Massie’s signature plate).  He hot solders a piece of sterling silver, cut exactly to size, to the back of the buckle to add stability, and then reattaches everything the way it was.  The end result is that the buckle looks exactly the same as it did, just a little heftier in weight.

 

Question:

Was there an additional charge for that?

 

Answer:

Yes.  The charge for restoring the buckle in this fashion was $200, instead of $85.  The customer decided to have us restore his buckle, as he was looking forward to wearing it frequently.

Repaired buckle back

Repaired buckle front.

 

Old Town Trading Company has been in business in Scottsdale, AZ for 26 years and has 2 Native American artists who perform expert repairs and renovations to new and vintage pieces.

 

Old Town Trading Co. / Jewels of the West

4009 N. Brown Avenue

Scottsdale, AZ  85251

480-970-8065

Attn: Diane

jewelsofthewest@qwestoffice.net

 

What is this Cracked Turquoise Pendant Worth?

Hi Paula,

I have a turquoise pendant that I was wondering what it might be
worth and who the designer might be.  There is no hallmark that I can
find; as you can see there’s a pretty large crack in the stone.
Jay

Hi Jay,

We don’t do appraisals from photos. We only do appraisals if someone sends items to us that they want to sell.

What I can tell you about this item is this:

Although it was once a pretty pendant, I doubt that it was Native American made as it doesn’t have any characteristics that I am familiar with and has several characteristics that are not Native American.

925 indicates that the metal portion is sterling silver.

I have no idea what the smaller gemstones are – addition of such stones, whether real or imitation, is not characteristic of Native American silversmiths. If you think the item did have value at one time, you might want to take it to a jeweler to have the stones tested.

The crack in the turquoise depreciates the value of the item to about 10% of its undamaged value. And whether that is real turquoise could only be determined on physical inspection.

We occasional get items like this is estate collections. Since the item can not be authenticated and is damaged, what we do is put them in with a group of other sterling silver items in our Bargain Barn as a lot.

I invite other readers to add their comments if they recognize something in the pendant that would be helpful to Jay.

Jewelry Repair – Native American Cast Bracelet

Hi Paula,

I have a split band Sterling Silver Tufacast cuff with one turquoise stone set in a bezel that is soldered to all 4 bands.  There is a fine crack almost all the way through one of the bands due to opening and closing the bracelet (which I no longer do). Should I have it repaired or leave as is?  Will the stone need to be removed?  What if I just melt silver solder over the crack as a patch to camouflage it?

Thank you, Lenora

First some definitions so all readers are on the same page here.

A split band bracelet can have 2 bands or as many as, well 20 or more. Lenora’s bracelet is a cast bracelet with 4 bands.There are also split band bracelets that are not cast.

Split band bracelets might also be referred to as a 4 Wire bracelet or sometimes a Spread Wire bracelet and yet that would not be correct as there are differences.

A split band is a bracelet made of one strip of sterling silver whose mid section has been sliced lengthwise into the desired number of bands so that the bands are open in the center (such as the plain sterling silver cast bracelet below) or can reach out and attach to the centerpiece, usually a nice turquoise stone.

Sterling Silver Split Band Bracelet

3-Wire Navajo Bracelet with Emerald Valley Turquoise Stone

8-Wire Zuni Bracelet

A wire bracelet is similar in end result but is made by joining the desired number of sterling silver wires together at their ends to form the end pieces of the cuff bracelet.

3-Wire Navajo Inlay Bear Bracelet

Tufa Cast and Sand Cast are basically the same procedure and you can read about the Sand Cast process in a previous post.

Lenora doesn’t say where the crack is exactly but most likely it is where one of the bands is attached to the back of the stone setting.

When a repair is made to sterling silver, heat is involved. Usually the stone would have to be removed or your risk at the least, the stone losing its adhesion to its setting and at the worst, the stone cracking or otherwise being damaged.

I would not advise camouflaging the crack with silver solder unless you are an experienced silversmith but then if you were, you wouldn’t be asking me !

But you bring up an excellent point – many Native American bracelets are damaged when people repeatedly open and close the bracelets to put them on and take them off. This can not only loosen the stones, especially with inlays, but it can also crack the silver.

Read more about selection and care of sterling silver bracelets.

Choosing a Cuff Bracelet

Cuff Bracelet Fit Tips Including Putting a Bracelet On Properly