Here's a dead pawn, vintage, peyote bird pendant, with a handmade silver bead necklace, that we purchased from highly respected pawn trader in northern Arizona.

We visit this trader twice each year (even though it's an 800 mile trip) because of his incredible knowledge of older Native American jewelry and his unquestioned honesty.

The pendant, made to depict a peyote bird, is decorated with turquoise & coral chip inlay and very nice hand stampings. The pendant (including it's bale) is 2+3/8" long.

To us, the feature of this set is the handmade, silver bead necklace which was made with various shaped silver beads. The necklace measures 23+1/2" long.

Combined, the pendant and necklace weigh a very comfortable 17 grams.

On the back of the pendant is the artist's hallmark. However, as with most vintage Native American made jewelry, there is no indication of the silver purity

State laws regulate how much information pawn traders are allowed to give out, however we were told that this set was made by a Navajo artist, during the late 1960's or early 1970's.

Despite it's age this wonderful old set is still in remarkably good condition. Each piece of turquoise and coral is set firmly in place and there are practically no signs of wear on the silver.

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".

NOTE: Sorry about the color quality of the red coral chips. Although we took the pictures several times the coral chips appears to be much darker than they actually are. In reality each piece of coral is a stunning dark shade of red.

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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.