Silver Standards: Coin Silver, Sterling, and German Silver in Southwest Jewelry

For most of the nineteenth century, Navajo smiths made silver jewelry by melting coins — first American, then Mexican — rather than working from commercial silver stock. Coin silver and sterling silver are different materials: coin silver (from US silver dollars) ran approximately ninety percent pure silver with ten percent copper; sterling silver is 92.5% silver (.925) with 7.5% copper. German silver — a trade material sometimes confused with actual silver — contains no silver at all. Understanding these three materials clarifies the early technical history of Southwest jewelry and explains why pieces from different eras look, handle, and age differently.

Mateo's Field Notes

Adair documents the coin-silver era with specificity. American silver dollars, half-dollars, and quarters were melted for jewelry. Then: "About 1890, when the government authorities began to enforce the laws which prohibit the defacing of currency, the traders began to import Mexican pesos for the use of the Navajo smiths. The silversmiths preferred this silver to that of the American coins, as it had less alloy; being purer in silver content, the metal was softer and more easily worked." (Adair 1944, ~pp. 28–29)

The two coin types produced visibly different results. American coins carried more copper, giving silver made from them a slightly more yellowish cast. Mexican pesos, purer, produced whiter silver. Adair is direct about the limits of this as a dating tool: "individual pieces can never be dated accurately on the basis of color. One can say only that jewelry made with the American coins is probably older than that made with the Mexican, and this generalization may be used only in connection with a large number of pieces, and never when speaking of an individual piece." (Adair 1944, ~p. 29) Color alone is not a reliable period indicator.

The transition to sterling followed the introduction of commercial sheet silver in the late 1920s. Bedinger documents it as part of the Guild era's improvements: "the substitution for coin silver of sterling, which takes a more beautiful finish." (Bedinger 1973, ~p. 203, citing Kirk 1945) Sheet silver arrived "about as fine as slugs" in the late 1920s, saving smiths much hard pounding and gradually replacing the ingot-and-hammer method. (Bedinger 1973, ~p. 32, citing Tanner 1960) Sterling's higher purity allowed a crisper polish and more consistent finish than coin silver.

German silver — an alloy of copper, zinc, and tin with no silver content — is a separate matter. Navajo smiths knew it from trade ornaments of Southern Plains tribes. Bedinger documents awareness but resistance: "My own experience as a collector brings to mind only two or three pieces in which the metal was inferior. The innate feel for silver among the Navajos is so sensitive that a fineness less than that of coin would be tolerated only under exceptional circumstances." (Bedinger 1973, ~p. 32) German silver in Navajo or Pueblo jewelry is documented in the corpus as the exception, not the rule — but it circulated as a trade material and appears occasionally. The corpus gives it an explicit warning: it is not silver.

In the Directory

Artists active in the coin-silver era whose work represents this material tradition: Grey Moustache (Diné) · Atsidi Sani (Diné) · Slender Maker of Silver (Diné) · Chee Dodge (Diné)

Related Entries

Hand-Wrought Ingot Work · The Hallmark Story · Origins of Navajo Silversmithing · Authenticity and Imitations