Thoughts on this Concho belt please

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21

I found out a little about where the belt is from.
The seller I purchased from found it in an antique store in Ohio. The antique store had this information:

“….that belt came out of a very large collection of turquoise out of Martins Ferry. Their Dad was a world renowned photographer and spent a lot of time with Native Americans out west. They liked him so much he was allowed to photograph them. He did lots of trading with them so it is hard to tell age. I would say at least the 60’s.

My note: a photographer from Martins Ferry, Ohio, passed away in 2021. John Kuzma, Jr. I don’t know if he is the one that had the belt, but John did travel a lot and had a National Park Passport. I only knew him as a student I taught in 1970. He was a very likable kid, and worked in his dad’s photography business back then.“

I did a bit of googling and found an old advert for the photography business, as well as the obit for Jr. I will continue to search about (I assume) Kuzma Sr., but there’s a bit of info for now.

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22

So fun to find out the history, thanks for sharing.

Ohio?? Guess I need to look in my area more…

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23

beautiful belt and I learned a lot just reading this thread. thank you for sharing. I hope someday to be able afford a real silver belt. I have nice alternatives but I really want to get a real one someday.

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@CosmicUnicorn2_WackysMom Thank you so much! Hey, I have a pewter Brighton Concho belt that belonged to my mom. I think I found this belt for her and I searched a lot until I found this one, it just takes time.

And a cool little note, it appraised for a good deal more than I paid for it, so that’s cool. The appraiser also told me the turquoise is Persian, so that’s another question answered.

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You can have the stones stabilized quite cheaply if you want to increase the longevity of the belt also!

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