Description
6.75" UITA-21 30's-40's Navajo Silver cuff bracelet with turquoise, early 1930’s to 1940’s and the place was Santa Fe, New Mexico at the prestigious Indian trading company of Julius Gans known as Southwest Arts and Crafts.
The United Indian Trader’s Association or U.I.T.A., founded in 1931 was a voluntary organization made up of the leading Indian traders of the day organized to promote and enforce the highest quality standards for the creation of genuine traditional Indian Arts and Crafts. The members were a veritable who’s who of the leading Indian traders of their day
and all pieces certified by UITA and stamped with their unique arrowhead hallmark had to pass a rigorous set of quality inspections regarding the materials and techniques used. Each member of UITA was assigned a specific numeric code which all pieces sold by them had to be stamped with.
One of the most prestigious Indian trading companies of the time was Julius Gans’ Southwest Trading Company of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Julius Gans was an enterprising and dynamic trader who employed at one time or another a veritable All-star team of some of the finest Native American silversmiths in the business; the Roanhorse brothers, Ambrose and Sam, Mark Chee and the fine Cochiti Pueblo silversmith David Taliman among others. The numeric code assigned by UITA to Southwest Arts and crafts was “UITA21” which is the stamp this bracelet is marked with.
This bracelet could very easily have been made by any one of Southwest Arts and Crafts’ ace silversmiths; it most resembles in our minds the work of Ambrose Roanhorse but it could easily have been made by his brother Sam or even possibly by Mark Chee or David Taliman or a number of others. The design is a beautiful repeating pattern of nine perfectly-executed diamond-shaped Navajo textile-style designs running across the center of the bracelet’s shank.
“The United Indian Traders Association (UITA) was established on September 13, 1931 for the expressed purpose of authentication of Indian crafts. At the time, the UITA as an important player both in Indian cultural life and in advocating for the sale of authentic Indian arts and crafts.
UITA was incorporated as a non-profit in New Mexico, with the support of a number of traders and San Francisco attorney Charles Elkus. Bert Staples (Coolidge, NM) was UITA's first President, R. C. Master (Zuni, NM) was Vice President, C. N. Cotton (Gallup, NM) served as Treasurer and Tobe Turpen (Gallup, NM) was Secretary. Directors included L. L. Sabin, C. G. Wallace, J. M. Drolet, Ramon Hubbell, Lloyd Ambrose, Bruce Barnard and Mike Kirk. All of the founding directors and officers were veteran owners of trading posts in the Southwest. The founding membership of 753 grew to over 125 in about 10 years.”
-Quotation source and © Bille Hougart Books
All precious metals are tested and guaranteed. A Native American jewelry piece referred to as "silver" or "ingot" is guaranteed to be at least 90% silver. I rarely use the word "sterling" when referring to older Native American silver or really any older silver jewelry as silver contents vary and "sterling" is 92.5% silver. No older jewelry is going to be exactly 92.5% silver, some a little over, some a little under. It wasn't an exact thing with handmade jewelry. I've seen thousands of pieces xrf'd to prove this. Bracelets are photographed on a 6" women's wrist.
