Native American New Arrivals
This week has been up and down for sure. I had back to back visits from two of my resources. My first visitors brought fabulous vintage jewelry from Mexico as well as Native American pieces including an amazing classic squash blossom necklace. The necklace is a nice medium size (not too large or too small) but has large turquoise stones. The second visitor flew in from Arizona and brought beautiful Native American pieces, including the group shown in the photo above. This group features wonderful artists - Darryl Becenti, Randy Dixson, Delbert Gordon, Verdy Jake, Nila Johnson, Scott Skeets and Henry Yazzie. The tufa cast style cross pendant is by Dan Dodson. When researching Dan Dodson online, I found that his work is right up my alley - he uses a lot of hearts in his designs which I love. I splurged on an amazing pendant necklace I found on Etsy. The pendant is black onyx with a purple spiny oyster accent and the beads are purple spiny oyster and black lava. Before purchasing, I inquired about the total weight and discovered it's about the same weight as my two largest Navajo pearl necklaces combined. I put both necklaces on and wore them around the house for a while and the combination did feel heavier than I am used to. However I decided to purchase because the dress code is black for Rachel's Halloween wedding and this necklace will look smashing with a black outfit. I never thought I would get used to the weight of my Rolex watch, it is a bit larger than my previous one but with consistent wear I am well used to it. With about 2.5 months until the wedding I have time to get in shape for statement necklace wearing! This is not my photo, the necklace has not arrived yet but I am really looking forward to it!
But I digress, which is easy for me to do when I talk about jewelry! I posted the above jewelry lot on Wednesday evening. It was the first lot I have posted in just over a month. Due to the skyrocketing silver prices lately, my resources have increased their prices accordingly. But these are wonderful items and worth the money as I sell at wholesale since I do not have the overhead of a store. There are several different types of turquoise represented in this lot including Boulder, Kingman, Persian, Royston, Sleeping Beauty and Sonoran Gold. A couple of the pieces are waterweb Kingman and the huge statement cluster ring has vintage Kingman stones. The medium size teardrop stone is Royston. I always gravitate to Royston, I love the combination of the brown matrix mixed with blue to green shades of turquoise. It is a favorite of turquoise afficionados as well. However I have never seen a stone like this one, the colors are so dreamy and watercolor-like. If it were larger I would be keeping it!
I think the lack of sales this time might be a combination of things - I have not been able to post jewelry for a month, prices have increased and there is a feeling among more and more Native American jewelry Facebook group members that they would like to purchase directly from the artists during the pandemic. Only the concho earrings with Kingman turquoise accents and the small Kingman teardrop shape pendant on the right side of the group at the lower left of the photo have been spoken for, all of the other items are available. The cuffs and rings are investment pieces but the earrings and most of the pendants are reasonably priced. This jewelry is all classic and will stand the test of time.
Sunday evening I plan to post a lot of vintage Native American jewelry and hope to have better success. I started from zero before and will persevere to get back where I was. As much as I love to work with the jewelry the estate sales have to come first.
I am a very positive, glass half full person and it takes a lot to get me down. Estate sale work is a thankless job - 95% of the folks we help never even respond after their results are presented to them. We are under a microscope at all times and it is guilty until proven innocent. I spend every waking moment, 7 days a week, 365 days a year on my business and know I cannot possibly devote any more time to it. Although I strive for perfection and I am always looking to improve things, we are human and not perfect. I equate the estate sale event to a wedding - no one's wedding goes 100% perfectly as planned but the goal is for things to go as smoothly as possible. I always tell myself these folks are going through a major life change and not to take their behavior personally. I know that everything we do is with their best interests at heart, our goal being to maximize the value of their estate, selling the highest percentage of items for the most money. We have been verbally beaten up on and treated pretty badly over time by both clients and customers and it is not just us - I belong to several Facebook groups for estate sale company owners and these people from all over the country report similar stories.
I am reflecting on this right now because Kuochun and I experienced verbal abuse this week like never before just doing a simple thing - picking up our supplies after a very successful sale. I was treated worse than dirt, I do not think people would even yell at animals like this. I am not a confrontational person - everyone who knows me knows I literally will not hurt a fly but it was very tempting to give this person a piece of my mind. I work for myself so I do not have to answer to a boss. However I held my tongue because our supplies were still in the house including four cases of my jewelry. We removed our supplies and got out of there. We cheered ourselves up afterwards by visiting a nearby cupcake shop. This did not last long - these past two days we have been accused of stealing a piece of jewelry which was never missing - it turned out the person did not quite remember what the piece of jewelry looked like. Such is the estate sale life but I will keep going because I know we do a great job and provide a valuable and unique service.
We are still in the middle of a pandemic, it is a challenging time for everyone. I think the famous quote by Bernard Meltzer is more fitting than ever right now: "Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid."