Navajo Antique Pawn Silver and Turquoise Necklace - Cuff Bracelet
This necklace and cuff have an elegant look not present in many older pieces and it is large,but not a ridiculous sized piece. Drapes beautifully just below the collar bone. Trust me, this makes a huge difference when it is worn and you can wear it with many more outfits due to this consideration by the craftsman.
Owned by top Navajo Designer Fred Guerro.,who signed the piece (however, it was likely made by an even more skilled craftsman than he) and was procured or inherited by Fred and was used as a pawn piece until it was lost at pawn. The piece ended up in a Pawn Shop just outside of Memphis and was purchased in 2010 and was gifted to the daughter of entertainer Jerry Lee Lewis.
Necklace 18"
Excellent workmanship
Owned by legendary Navajo Silversmith Guerro whose name is hand engraved on the back.
solid silver with stones that are solid and not reconstituted or impregnated with epoxy. All stones are large, true and perfectly matched.
The Navajo silversmith's used Pawn Shops like banks in the early through the late-mid 20th century, hence the term, "pawn piece." They kept their finest pieces for this purpose and rarely sold them outright. This set was somehow tragically lost and reemerged decades later at a pawn shop in Northern Mississippi near Memphis.
This Navajo Necklace and Cuff Bracelet was gifted to the biological daughter of Jerry Lee Lewis (Phoebe Lewis-Loftin the only undisputed living biological child of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Grammy and Country Western Hall of Fame, and American Music Masters award winner (Other awards are too numerous to list), Jerry Lee Lewis and his wife (Phoebe’s mother), Myra Gale Lewis were the original controversial, rock and roll, couples. Phoebe and her two biological brother’s (now both deceased) are mentioned in Nick Tosche’s explicit and controversial book, ‘Hell Fire.’
Though owned by Fred Guerro this may have been a family piece that was either gifted to, or inherited by Fred Guerro, and an expert stated that if Fred did make it then it would have been his finest piece.
Rather than just decorative or ceremonial a lot of attention was paid to these as high end pieces of Native American jewelry. The silversmithing was all done by hand and is very fine work. Especially the fact that it negotiates the collarbones with the large turquoise pieces always hugging right to the skin and the tips never raise from the skin like cheap pieces often do. The silver is substantial and solid. The turquoise is exquisite.
IT IS ILLEGAL TO SELL NAVAJO JEWELRY AS NATIVE AMERICAN IF NOT CRAFTED BY ACTUAL NAVAJO TRIBAL MEMBERS AND THE FINE IS $250,000.00 AND/OR IMPRISONMENT FOR UP TO 5 YEARS, UNDER THE INDIAN ARTS AND CRAFTS ACT OF 1990.
The cuff bracelet is a perfect matched piece amd also exquisite quality turquoise and all are solid, perfectly matched, solid turquoise of large size not the new reconstituted turquoise which is ground to powder then epoxies are added to form what we consider to be, manufactured, cheap turquoise. It would be almost impossible and extremely expensive to replicate this piece today.
The cost of curating these high end pieces of matched turquoise would exceed the cost of the piece itself and the silver weight alone is substantial, but dispersed in such a way that it never feels heavy or clunky like many modern pieces.
This piece comes with provenance (signed documents from Phoebe Lewis-Loftin). Fred Guerro signed the piece with an engraving tool on the inside likely to establish identity of his ownership since earlier pieces were often not hallmarked. This could be a piece by Guerro’s father or another craftsman since Guerro is not known for pieces of this size.
Ezekiel Asa Loftin XII purchased the piece years later from the pawn dealers main showcase using part of his first large check from his distributors for his award winning magazine “Twisted South”. The piece has been loaned to and worn by Phoebe’s mother Myra Gale Lewis on several occasions to wear while promoting her book.
The piece offers a unique and historic buying opportunity for a piece of truly fashionable REAL Navajo silver and solid turquoise and the mine is no longer producing and quantity or quality to have matched pieces to rebuild this necklace and cuff bracelet. Stones not reconstituted or filled with epoxy in America are rare.
