Charles Loloma Sterling Silver Bracelets, ca. 1970
GUEST: My parents collected jewelry from the Southwest, and these are two Charles Loloma pieces that I believe they got in the early '70s through the Heard Museum. And we actually have the receipts, so that it was some...
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: It was under $200.
APPRAISER: Oh, you're kidding me.
GUEST: Per piece.
APPRAISER: These are by Charles Loloma. He was a Hopi artist from Third Mesa, from Hote, Hotevilla, or Bacavi, and it's on the Hopi reservation in Arizona. He was a modernist silversmith, a jeweler. He is really the godfather...
GUEST: Uh.
APPRAISER: ...of American Indian jewelry. His influence and his impact on jewelry altogether...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...has just been unprecedented. These are tufa-cast. It's actually a really soft sandstone.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Easy to carve into, and then you... (blows): ...blow out the, uh, dust.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And you carve all of these designs into them. In, in this case, this one being very simple, just a simple band, and it's all about the texture, and this is an abstracted landscape. The thing that's really exciting about these two, they're early. These evolved into very complex, large inlaid bracelets with ironwood, coral, turquoise. They became gold, sugilite. They got to be very beautiful. But I backpedal to this period, which I like the best. Very innately Hopi, and I just love that. Now, Charles Loloma, he was born in 1921...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...and he died in 1991. He studied at Alfred University, and he was also a instructor for a short period of time at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Do you have an idea about the, the value of these at all?
GUEST: I would say for the two pieces, about $15,000.
APPRAISER: Okay, so that would be, what, $7,500 each?
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: They're signed on the back.
GUEST: Correct.
APPRAISER: They come with provenance, right?
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Receipts?
GUEST: Yes, from the Heard.
APPRAISER: Um, and they are also really... (chuckles): ...iconically by Charles Loloma. I would venture to say that in today's market, this bracelet alone, probably, in the retail marketplace, about $25,000.
GUEST: Whoa. Can I sit down? Only kidding-- wow. (laughs):
APPRAISER: Yeah. This bracelet...
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: ...maybe a little more.
GUEST: Like, why?
APPRAISER: Because people like turquoise. And look at that great penetration through the stone.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: The fact that it goes all the way through, it's remarkable.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And it's just a really great example of his m, restraint and creativity. $28,000.
GUEST: Wow. (stammers)
APPRAISER: So, yeah.
GUEST: So my parents did very well when they purchased these back in the '70s. I mean, they're beautiful pieces.
$53,000 - $53,000 Retail
$53,000 - $53,000 Retail
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Understanding Our Appraisals
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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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