Yesterday, I visited my friend, Brenda, who has been an admirer of authentic Navajo arts and crafts and over the years has taught herself to weave beautiful Navajo rugs – twenty-one in all! Thus, the earned nick-name: “White Weaver.” I’m calling her White Weaver Woman of White River Valley.

After loaning me eight of […]

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You’ve heard of “unidentified flying objects.” Well, for us collectors in the world of antiques and collectibles we all know one of the biggest hurdles is sometimes identifying our treasures.
Today, I visited my sweet neighbor down the road, Helen, who has one of those “unidentified collectible objects”! Actually, their home is stocked full with genuine […]

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Yesterday, we had lunch with our friends, Tom and Jill, at their home in Rifle, Colorado, who collect firefighter paraphernalia. Since they are both former firefighters this makes sense. We looked through vintage fire extinguishers from World War I era and World War II era. In a case, they had a wide assortment of model […]

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Photo: Navajo Inlay bracelet and earrings set. Artist, Tommy Jackson.
Today, I am researching and studying turquoise of the Southwest…USA that is! Actually, high-grade turquoise can be found in China, Tibet, Persia and Southwest US. But, for our observation and learning experience we will focus on the latter.
If you are a geologist, avid collector of turquoise […]

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This past week while chatting with my younger brother about the vast expanse of antiques and collectibles, he made an excellent observation in that each collectible has it’s own sub-culture.

Back when he and his wife, Cara, owned the first Antique & Collectible store in our family, he was astounded one day when an avid […]

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A highly collectible stone, Bisbee turquoise has developed a reputation as a hard, strikingly brilliant blue stone with finely webbed deep chocolate brown to black matrix, of a very high quality. Coming from an equally colorful history, this beautiful turquoise was discovered in the early 1950’s at the Bisbee Copper Mine, near Bisbee, Arizona. Originally, […]

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If you are a collector of Native American Arts and Crafts you are probably aware of the highly exceptional “two-faced rug” weaving. Ann Hedlund with Arizona State Museum explains the amazing art technique involved: “Besides a plain over/under weave used in most rugs, Navajo weavers also use a variety of other techniques. The two-faced weave […]

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As reported in a trip comment on April 26th, I had the privilege of visiting the Frankoma manufacturing factory in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. Their large showroom and seconds store provide plenty of treasures to choose from and their hospitality is Oklahoma typical. Tours of the factory run Mon-Fri during store hours which I believe are 9:00 […]

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