Anyone seen this free-hand Hopi craft hallmark & the artist it might belong to?

This was purchased in the late 1960s in trip to Four Corners and Durango. Trying to identify the artist hallmark, if anyone can help.

Here are some additional close-up pics.

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Hi, itā€™s Navajo work, not Hopi, IMHO. Search for Hc among Navajo silversmiths.

I agree this is definitely Navajo Shadow Box style work. The pearls are handmade and I am not great with turquoise mines but this looks like Bisbee Blue to meā€¦very nice! The signature is made with an electric engraver or a scribe which is kind of an older technique used to mark your piece but this seems to still be 70ā€™s-80ā€™s era style Navajo workā€¦so now we just have to do some research on the signatureā€¦be back in a bit!

I donā€™t think itā€™s Bisbee. Bisbee has a chocolate brown matrix, and looks similar to Persian turquoise. I wouldnā€™t know what it is, though. I have to be contrarianā€“I think the beads may have been commercially made, though I could be wrong. Itā€™s a little har to see them.

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Iā€™m going with Kingman on the stones, but hopefully, Jason will chime in and set the record straight.

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Iā€™ll be interested to hear what he thinks too. I feel the pearls and tubes look too imperfect to have been machine made, the thicker seams and slightly imperfect sizes seem like the way they turn out when made by hand. As far as the turquoise I am just guessing based on the blue and they are nugget pieces so itā€™s a little harder to see the matrix material as much. I did a lot of looking into that makers mark and still havenā€™t seen anything thatā€™s the same and in fact it might be Zuni rather than Navajo after seeing some similarities in other piecesā€¦the other thing I feel it could be not Hc but maybe HIc or HLc or HJc or some other variation because of the way itā€™s not quite a true Hā€¦weā€™ll figure it out eventually :grinning:

After looking yet again ā€¦Or HFcā€¦:thinking: LoL

Yes, the bottom right leg of the H not having the serif/flag/thing is odd. I havenā€™t found anything on this mark either. :face_with_monocle:

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Thanl you so muxh for your help to identify these pieces. The navajo information is especially helpful because all my own research efforts were directed towards Hopi artists as I receives several suggestions that the Hc hallmark would belong to Hopi Enterprises or Hopi Crafts.

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We would call this Navajo made, Kingman Turquoise and the beads are handmade. The Hopi Crafts mark will usually be accompanied by the individual artistā€™s hallmark. I could not find anything on this mark. I wanted it to be a Hyson Craig before he started using his stamped mark, but just reaching.

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No problemā€¦we enjoy the hunt and learning so much more along the way about all of the different facets of NA craft. So as far as this being Hopi there are a lot of reasons why we can pretty definitely rule that out and the first thing being the styleā€¦Hopi jewelry was and is made in a very distinctive style through mostly cutouts and overlays and hashmarked backgrounds using chisels and Hopi imageryā€¦this is not absolute though and there are Hopi artists who made quote"Navajo" or ā€œZuniā€ style work and vice-versa. Secondly the Hopi Craft mark is completely different from this mark and itā€™s universally stamped the same throughout guild members because it was a workshop of makers in a group and itā€™s structure is very easily ruled out. The Hopi Craft guild Hallmark is an HC made with a series of flat lines chiseled to form a stylized Horse like image of HC and the Hallmark on yours is a series of point marks made by a pointed chisel which has the randomized look of that done by the chisel of an electric engraver that was a popular tool back thenā€¦we will figure it out furtherā€¦a good site for Hopi Craft marks is amerindien-art.com they have a lot of examples and itā€™s very helpful when it comes to pictomarks to which are widely used in the NA jewelry businessā€¦Iā€™m still looking :face_with_monocle:

Great information on the Hopi Craft hallmark. I guess my research went in that direction as the Hc stamped hallmark was the only marking that was somewhat similar. I appreciate the passion that everyone has in their quest for information regarding native american jewelry and artists. My father loved any and all things made by native american artists and would purchase as many pieces that money would allow while on our trips to Four Corners and surrounding areas. Sadly, all his collection, with the exception of this this set, was sold for almost nothing during my motherā€™s estate auction.

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Wanted to share this to show how difficult it can be to tell the difference between handmade and manufactured beads. Care to guess what is handmade and not?

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Iā€™m going to go with the ones closest to your fingertip, the seams seem a little less uniform although a lot thicker almost like they were sanded a little. Maybe Iā€™m wrong but you have to learn sometime. :nerd_face:

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I am guessing the middle strand.
I hope this is graded on a learning curvešŸ˜

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The beads on the right are handmade.

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Darn itšŸ˜ž. It appears I have a lot of learning to do.

I love this :heart_eyes: place! I really have learned so much in just a few years of being a part of the groupā€‹:kissing_heart:

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Gaah it can be so hard to tell! I was going to guess the two rightmost strands were both hand made and the one on the left manufactured.

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