Authentic Native American Jewelry — Navajo, Hopi, Zuni & Santo Domingo, Vintage to Contemporary

Every piece of Native American jewelry at The Gordon Collection is exactly what it says it is. In a market flooded with imports, machine-made imitations, and misrepresented pieces, that statement matters more than it ever has. The Gordon Collection has been buying and selling authentic Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Santo Domingo jewelry from our gallery in Telluride, Colorado since 1973 — and our relationships with the artists, families, and communities who create these pieces run over fifty years deep.

Native American silverwork is one of the great art traditions of the American Southwest. The Navajo began working silver in the mid-1800s, learning the craft from Hispanic blacksmiths and transforming it within a generation into something entirely their own — heavy ingot work, bold stamp decoration, and the marriage of sterling silver with the turquoise, coral, shell, and natural stones of their homeland. The Zuni developed a parallel tradition defined by extraordinary lapidary skill: intricate inlay, delicate petit point and needlepoint stonework, and cluster settings where silver serves as the vehicle for the stones rather than the centerpiece.  Hopi silversmiths work primarily with sterling silver in an overlay technique - hand carving their designs into sheets of silver before soldering onto lower sheet of silver creating the jewelry structure.  Specializing in geometric, balanced and symbolic designs.  Santo Domingo Pueblo artists have long produced some of the finest heishi — hand-rolled shell beads ground to extraordinary thinness — as well as mosaic inlay and bold stone-and-shell necklaces that have been traded across the Southwest for centuries.

Our collection spans vintage and contemporary work across all four traditions. Vintage jewelry made for and worn by both Native Americans and as commerce outside of the reservations and pueblos.  Our vintage collections carry a depth of history, weight of silver, and quality of natural turquoise.  While contemporary jewelry can step out of the box by creating bold and new unique designs.  We carry both, and we know the difference. Every piece of jewelry, every technique, every hallmark matters to us, and we share that knowledge with every buyer.

Whether you are building a serious collection, searching for a meaningful gift, or simply looking for a piece of authentic Southwest artistry to wear — our Telluride gallery holds considerably more than what appears online. Contact us to describe what you are looking for. We have spent five decades learning how to find the right piece for the right person.