Vintage Navajo “Harvey Era” turquoise decorated sun symbols brooch. The silversmith has created an oblong silver brooch applying a slit across the center which alouds the artist to expand the opening. The artist applies a stamped full sun at both ends and continues to stamp repeating sunrise symbols on both the upper and lower sections of the split silver base. The artist then starts adding decoration by attaching a round cut and polished turquoise stone in center. The stone is set in a shallow smooth silver bezel wrapped with both twisted wire and repeat silver drops. To both sides of the stone setting the artist has mounted a large silver drop and wrapped a twisted wire scroll around it. The artist finishes the brooch by attaching a safety locking pin on the back.

The turquoise brooch measures 9/16” tall by 2 1/8” across and weighs 5.8 grams. It’s unsigned sterling silver. The reference “Harvey Era” refers back to the 30’s-40’s and earlier during which the railroad was the most traveled way to go to California from the eastern states. A man by the name of Fred Harvey built Hotels and restaurants all along the Santa Fe rail line and hired local Navajo silversmiths to make jewelry and other crafts to sell to the tourists as they traveled out west. To this day there are still some of the Harvey Hotels/Restaurants with the most recognized being on the south side of the Grand Canyon. Very nice vintage brooch from yesteryear! $63.95