A great old, circa 1930s, Navajo bracelet with actual carinated triangular wire and good natural turquoise stones. The stones could be Cerrillos. There is a small old crack in one stone, but the stone is stable.
The word “carinated” wire has become a pet peeve of mine as the word is often mis-characterized as just meaning triangular. True carinated wire means that the silver (ingot or melted coin silver) was hammered into a keel shaped form, resulting in a triangular shaped wire. The important part is that that wire was hand formed in that keel-shaped mold, not mechanically extruded as commercial silver wire. Additionally, an artist could refine the shape of the carinated wire by pulling it through a drawplate. The keel-shaped mold and/or pulling the wire could result in the small ridges visible on each side of the edges of the back of the wire, showing that the wire was shaped by hand as the artist hammered the wire into the keel “V” shaped form.
A great old bracelet. The bracelet measures 6 3/4″ inside circumference including the current opening x 1″ across the top center. In excellent old condition with perfect wear for its age.
