"OLD PAWN" - Antique Native American Turquoise Jewelry

The Term "Old Pawn" is different than the term "Dead Pawn", "Old Pawn" refers to pawned items that were unredeemable and were transfered into the possetion of the pawn broker, or trading post in the case of the Southwestern Native American Indians. Pawn can also be items from antiquity, heirloom pieces of hand made Turquoise Jewelry or craft, passed from a family into the public marketplace. It was a common practice and still is, of the Southwestern Native American Indians to pawn vintage turquoise jewelry, artwork, possessions and convert them into instant income for life's necessities with the intension of getting these posessions back when they were again financially stable. Many times, then and now, the Native Americans will pawn family heirloom vintage turquoise jewelry or other possesions for a brief time in trade for jewelry making supplies and turquoise to make jewelry to resale and make a profit and be able to re-obtain their old pawn possesions or vintage turquoise jewelry. Sometimes the Native Americans, especially Navajo Indians, are unable to turn a profit from the supplies they pawned their turquoise jewelry or possessions for, and thus the items become "Dead Pawn". This merchandise, often heirloom turquoise jewelry, is now on the market to the public. This is a small percentage of the Pawn merchandise, about 5% or pawn becomes Dead Pawn.

Many times this Dead Pawn merchandise from recent days is miss-labeled as Old Pawn. Old Pawn is actually what HONEST dealers consider Dead Pawn from at least 50 years ago, and in most cases they will not call it Old Pawn Jewelry unless it is vintage turquoise jewelry from the 1950's or earlier. If you were to visit one of the many Internet Sites, Gallup, Santa Fe, Scottsdale, or any of the other southwestern tourist cities famous for vintage native american turquoise jewelry, you would find many of the dealers are not trustworthy and UN-HONEST about what they are selling. They will try to tell you that modern day Dead Pawn Jewelry is Old Pawn Turquoise Jewelry. This is not true, and is certainly not as valuable as a pawned piece of Native American Jewelry from 50-100 years ago. For this reason YOU HAVE TO BUY FROM A REPUTABLE DEALER WITH A GOOD RETURN POLICY. That is what we (the Hartman's of Durango, Colorado) are offering you, as we are experts in this field and have been for over 40 years.

“Old Pawn” and Heirloom Vintage Turquoise Jewelry pieces are among the most highly valued Native American Artifacts to be found in the open market today, not to mention they are wearable! Vintage Turquoise Jewelry dot com has acquired many wonderful pieces of heirloom old pawn jewelry and antique turquoise jewelry over the last 40 years and we are willing to share it with you. We continue to collect these fine pieces of antique native american art and will continue to list different pieces on the site as time goes by, so don't forget to keep checking in with us to see what new AUTHENTIC antique turquoise jewelry and heirloom Native American art we have for your collection.

Old Pawn - Antique Native American Jewelry History