I’ve just bought this lovely inlay cuff from an auction, after looking in the big blue book of wonders, I’ve come across Fannie and after a bit of research online it seems to be legit. Can anyone who knows her work confirm please
Why specifically do you believe this bracelet was made by someone named “Fannie Platero”, @BigCountryUK? What research have you done to arrive at this conclusion?
A quick search has led to numerous instances of this name being used by a variety of different sellers offering a wide variety unrelated items that couldn’t possibly have come from the same hand. Is this the source of your research?
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I believe the OP is saying this because Hougart’s 5th edition has a capital letter “F” listed as one of her hallmarks. However, this looks different than her work that I can find online from reputable sources, and like we always say on here, single block letter hallmarks are hard to authenticate. Although it is not completely exhaustive, Hougart’s does not mention that she is known for inlay.
Personally, I would not assume this bracelet was made by her.
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Technically the construction appears to be mixed stone channel inlay in a production cast shank. The type of item produced in bulk and sold out of kitchen sized freezer tubs full of like items in Gallup and Albuquerque jobber level showrooms in the 70s, 80s and into the 90s. At some point there was a hand made shank used as a master, but it wasn’t the one used to make this bracelet.
Respectfully, I’d like to know the thought, and research process that led @BigCountryUK to believe this was an original work by the attibuted silversmith. Was it simply a Hougart’s citation, or other items with a single block letter “F” stamp attributed by various online sellers to Fannie Platero?
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I agree. Because after looking her up in Hougart’s, and reading there what kind of work she is known for, plus looking even just a little bit online, didn’t make me think it is her piece. At all.
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There is this as well. ‘Sterling’ looks (poorly) laser marked, not stamped. There is an area just to the right that appears to show remnants of text, possibly filled in with solder and smoothed over before the piece was inlayed. This is often done by hole in the wall production shops with cast downs prior to inlaying to obfuscate the hallmark of the original maker which is faithfully reproduced in the cast down copy.
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And, as Mike notes, there are gobs of similarly designed and constructed bracelets out there with “unknown” origins. And if Fannie Platero doesn’t work in this style or this quality level (i.e., mass market), well then the math is clear.
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The auction house I bought it off mentioned a Platero, so when I firstly looked in the book, obviously you see the capital F with sterling so you go straight to that, I know it isn’t her style but looking on other forums, a lot have people have said the style changed when she married, I’m just going what I’ve read, that’s why, I’ve asked, I have a similar Calvin Begay bracelet that is very similar and love, so when I saw this, I just had to have it.
It was a risk, I’ve informed the auction house of false advertising, we live and learn, thank you for everyone that’s helped
Just annoying because where I bought it from claim to be experts
Thanks
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Thank you for giving us the information, and being clear about it. I can see how it would be confusing, especially being overseas. And I agree with you, it’s very frustrating for these auction houses to claim to be experts in everything. I wish they would dig deeper, and then just call it Southwest style when they don’t know. Also it helps to know that you can discount a lot of claims made on eBay and etsy, because they are rife with sellers who either are ignorant or deliberately misrepresenting their jewelry. The more you read on here the more you will learn what places are trustworthy. You might be interested in this recent thread if you haven’t read it…Kirk Smith?
I also want to thank you for listening and appreciating the advice you get on here. Your knowledge of Native jewelry will definitely increase 
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Thank you. @BigCountryUK, for the detailed and candid response. The detail about the bracelet looking like another you have by Calvin Begay is interesting. The text which appears to have been filled in with solder at some point prior to inlay looks like an electric engraver signature. I can make out the letters “B” “e” and y” with two very hard to read characters between th “e” and “y”.
It’s certainly possible the auction house was misled. Once a fabricated back story is attached to a piece, it’s nearly impossible to determine when, where, and from whom that falsehood made it into the chain of custody along the way.
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It’s interesting that online sellers were saying that her style changed when she got married. It seems like that’s the latest thing; when an item doesn’t look like what the artist generally makes, some sellers like to say that it was an earlier piece, and the artist’s style has changed (of course they have no actual proof of this) as a way to make it fit their narrative.
Thank you for mentioning that, because I wondered about this very thing recently in another recent thread (we have had a few people on here lately trying to push this idea). And I’m sure you are frustrated by the misinformation you received, but by sharing it you have helped others learn more about what to be wary of when they purchase. In the end it’s not only unfair to buyers, but even worse, it hurts the actual Native American artists.
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Thank you all, for helping me out, I got stung by misinformation and I’ve learnt from that, I just wish like you said, they would list it as south western, I’ve just found smoother one on eBay, which is very similar claiming to be Fannie Platero
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This is the one on eBay, I’ll imagine they’ve been told some story and they’ve posted it thinking it was true
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Oh dear. I just keeping thinking how frustrating that must be for the actual artist.
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It’s terrible and I could imagine cause some problems and issues! I’m just glad I have such a great forum and friends that can help
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@BigCountryUK. This isn’t a new problem by any means. The fact is 95+% of the jewelry circulating in the resale market, especially in price ranges the average person can afford without taking out a mortgage has passed through many, many hands without any sort of paper trail or documented history.
With extremely rare exceptions, and I do mean extremely rare, with emphasis, it is virtually all jewelry produced in quantity (10 to 100 pieces at a time) in a production, or piecework scenario, where by the time it makes it from the original maker, to the contracting trader, or wholesaler, until it is sold in a lot of up to 100s of items of different styles to the original individual brick and mortar, or more recently an online retailer, beyond the originating dealer or trading enterprise no one has kept any sort of real record of who actually made the item.
In other words, by the time the actual retail consumer of this item bought an item of this type from the retailer for the first time ever, sometime in the 70s, 80s, 90s, or early 2000s, despite laws having been on the books since 1934 (which underscores how long ago this became a big enough problem to demand legislation to combat it), it is very likely that no one in a retail establishment beyond the original trading post or wholesaler who brought it into the market actually knew who really made it, its true history, or had any sort of true documented chain of custody. This is before it went through numerous other hands over the intervening decades with stories made up along the way to motivate the next person down the line to purchase it.
I’ll even go better than 95% on that estimate, and say this is true of 99+%, of the affordable, and somewhat affordable items offered by internet resellers.
The thing every consumer of these types of items needs to know, but almost no one ever talks about, or mentions is that almost nothing for sale out there at this price level, being sold by the thousands of anonymous internet vendors hawking these goods has a documented history or actual verifiable chain of custody.
The provenance in most cases is simply non existent. The rule, not the exception is that no matter what the seller claims, in almost every case they have no way of actually proving, or substantiating those claims.
ETA: I’ll add that it’s possible Fannie Platero at some point worked in a production shop making bracelets of this type. In that kind of environment, there are usually several individuals involved in the production environment, fabricators, casters, wax injectors, inlayers, sanders, finishers. Some or all of those individuals may or may not be native.In the US, one can’t legally offer items made this way as the work of a particular native craftsperson. Not that it ever stops most resellers from doing so. In almost all cases, by the time it gets into circulation in the current resale market, the shop is no more, and if there ever was documentation regarding who did what, it’s loooong gone by the time the resellers lay hands on it.
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all the Fannie Platero on ebay right now
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