This is a vintage, handmade, turquoise & silver bench bead necklace that we purchased at an estate sale in northern New Mexico.

The necklace measures 16+1/2" long and it weighs a very comfortable 21 grams. As with most, vintage, Native American made jewelry there is no artist's hallmark nor any indication of the silver purity.

As the pictures displayed above indicate this necklace contains 35, various sized, handmade round beads and 8 handmade melon beads. The artist added two turquoise nugget beads to add some color.

The seller didn't recall the artist's name but we were told that she purchased it on the Navajo Reservation during the 1950's.

Despite it's age and travels this wonderful old beauty is still in remarkably good condition.

It can use some cleaning and polishing but we'll leave that for it's next owner. Our store policy is that we never clean vintage jewelry as most collectors prefer to receive these older pieces "as is".

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NOTES:

All pictures are enlarged to show detail.

The coin in one of the pictures is a quarter.

Colors may vary based on your monitor's settings.