This silver pendant with bear claw and turquoise (Bisbee, I think) stone came from a small silver shop in Kentucky, which operated in the 1970’s-80’s. The owner’s son was selling off old stock and he offered me this piece. The back of the pendant is clearly stamped, but after doing my best to research the mark, I was unable to identify the silversmith. I was told the shop carried silver jewelry made by Navajo artisans. I’m hoping someone recognizes the mark and can solve this mystery for me. Thanks!
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I’m not even sure what that hallmark is; is it initials? Symbols? And I hate to sound like a broken record, but I don’t think that is Bisbee turquoise. Maybe a Kingman nugget, but no way to ever know for sure without good provenance.
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Agree that this is not Bisbee.
@CTrings can you share why you stated it to be Bisbee?
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Not Bisbee. Looks like it could be Kingman with the shoe polish treatment. For some reason everyone seems to think they have Bisbee, when in reality it is a very rare stone.
Also not sure if it is truly a bear claw. I’m not particularly good at identifying bear claws, as they are not quite my style, but I know that a lot of supposed bear claws are other types of claw such as badger, or sometimes resin. Genuine bear claws have certain restrictions around selling.
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Big buck$, and that’s why everyone thinks they have it 
. Good thing more stones don’t look like Lander Blue.
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The mark looks like symbols to me, but then again, the mark could be stylized initials. It might be a Kingman nugget or something else, I guess.
Someone I showed the piece to last year mentioned they thought it was Bisbee.
Personally, I don’t care whether the stone is Bisbee or not, and as I’m not interested in selling this pendant, the value doesn’t matter either.
Just to clarify, the comment is a generalization and not directed at anyone in particular. Just what we see a lot.
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Yes, there are many restrictions when it comes to selling real bear claws. This piece was created long before artificial bear claws hit the market and at a time when there were far fewer laws prohibiting the sale of certain animal parts. Were this shop still in business in Kentucky, they could no longer sell this piece, but we’re talking about 50 years ago. That said, when I acquired the pendant the claw was loose and I was able to examine the end and inside. It has since been re-set by a Navajo silversmith.
Okay, I had no luck, but these are a little hard to figure out what they are, so that makes it hard to figure out in which hallmark category to look; that was why I asked. Possibly it’s an anglo-made piece.
I have seen a lot of Kingman nuggets that look quite a bit like your stone. Plus Kingman is the most prolific American mine, so it often becomes the default when the mine is unknown. But without provenance no one can really say for sure. I will say it does look like American turquoise, not Chinese IMO.
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Agree. This is Kingman nugget. Additionally, I think looking for a Native American maker for this is unlikely to yield results. Bear claw everything was wildly,virally popular from 73’ -74’ on, and there were many, many non-native silversmiths (including myself) producing bear claw pendants for orders from numerous trading companies like Running Bear in Gallup.
We used to get hundreds of claws from then Running Bear owner Pete Shultz, which we would clean up and process into pendants and all sorts of bear claw jewelry. The awful smell of cleaning and processing those claws is still fresh in my mind today.
Stylistically although this has elements commonly thought of as ‘Navajo’, to me this has the look and feel of a non-native silversmith working in a Navajo style.
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Thank you for you assessment. It very well could be a non-Navajo piece and I guess until I can identify this mark, I won’t know for sure.
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