Collection of Handmade Navajo Jewelry Tools [SOLD]

This Navajo man’s silversmithing tools were most likely pawned to the Balcomb family in the 1950s or 1960s and never reclaimed from pawn.  They have passed down in the Balcomb family and now are in the possession of one of the grandchildren.  There are 28 individual tools used in the manufacture of Navajo silver jewelry.  Many of them are stamps used in decorating jewelry.  Some of the tools were made from rat tail files, from flat files and other metal objects.  They are stored in a tin box from Whitman’s Prestige Chocolates (probably from the 1920s).

It is rare for a jeweler to pawn his tools that he would need when making jewelry.  It is likely that they were pawned after he passed away, and removing them from pawn was not of interest to the member who pawned them.

Condition: original

Provenance: from the inheritance of a daughter of the Balcomb family, owners of several art galleries of Native American art and objects in the post-WWII era until the 1970s when they closed their last gallery, who passed these on to her son, the current owner.

Recommended Reading:  The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths by John Adair, University of Oklahoma Press (1946)