Featured 1940s sterling turquoise Zuni style ring?

A Zuni style ring. The turquoise cabochons are not matched. A lot of scratches on the back but no actual maker's mark, as is usual for older NA jewellery. (And yes, I know about the 1990 Indian Arts and Crafts Act.)
Is it 1940s? Any other ideas?
Thanks for looking.


Cleaned it a bit more, but no mark:

 

With those stones, I'd say more Navajo than Zuni. Not every maker marks things even now, and it doesn't look incredibly old. I'd say more 1970 than 1950, but I'm not an NA expert.

 

It could have been made by anyone in the last 40/50 years,white,black,brown,Asian,NA,It would be just a guess even by the "experts".

 

Navajo rings shanks are usually split where they are soldered against the crown, Zuni use single, non-split shanks.
I know Robert Dishta (Zuni) made similar things in the 50s, but those were signed and the stones were more matched.
But it is a pretty generic style and this ring doesn't have Robert Dishta quality.

 

It might even be "deadhead sterling", jewelry made by some hippies who followed the Grateful Dead around from town to town. A fair number of them made silver rings and the like, and some of those were Native style. The single shank would be common for that group too.

 

Thanks, interesting, something to look into.

 

I can only find the usual skull and lightning bolt deadhead jewellery, and some macrame of course, easy to make when you're on the road.

 

It may have been mostly made in the Haight; there were plenty of hippie silversmiths in San Francisco. Odds are the silversmithing was done in one spot and then the merch carted around from town to town. That's a possibility anyway. It could also be "southwestern" tourist jewelry done in a mishmash of styles for sale to tourists who didn't know any better anyway.(LOL) Hard to say.

 

Whoever made it, it is Zuni style, just not the Zuni style you see nowadays.
I just found a picture of a 50s Robert Dishta ring, obviously better quality than mine, but you can see the style:

 

That's gorgeous. Yours is also a lot older; the turquoise has "greened" from exposure to something or other.

 

I have several Dishta family pieces, among them a set of 1930s Frank Dishta cuff links that was verified by a member of the family. Frank was the first Zuni to make turquoise inlay flush with the mount.
The style of this ring is a slightly later development, but still with the non-matched stones Frank would have used, which is why I think it is 1940s. The style may also have been developed by the Dishta family, which doesn't mean this ring is Zuni.

 

One of my favorite pair of earrings are in a very similar style to your ring. These were purchased in 1990 or 1991 from one of the suppliers to the jewelry store where I worked. He would make the rounds out west not only to various pawn shops, but also to lumber yards and other supply stores where jewelry was "traded" for goods (and I assume he was telling the truth). These were sold to me as Zuni and they too are unsigned.

 

Something is odd with the stones,but enlarging the photos doesn't let me see what it is.

 

Mine? If so, yes ... I agree. Something looked "off" as I was photographing them ... can't believe I never really looked at them close-up with a loupe before ... just loved the way they looked when worn. My stones are a little too uniform in color and have grooves not polished out in their top surface. Guess they could be low quality stabilized stones or even (hopefully not) "block" turquoise. Bummer.

At least the stones in Any Jewelry's ring in the OP look like real natural turquoise, right?

 

Not sure what you think low quality stabilized stones are,but the majority of turquoise mined in the U.S. has been stabilized since the late 70's.Looking at the photos again,they appear to possibly be cabochons mounted upside down and now see the "flat" bottoms of the stones.

 

Quirky, they are gorgeous. And yes, it looks like the cabochons were mounted upside down.
I have been looking a bit more at the Zuni style of my ring, your earrings are the same style, and have found out that my associative idea of Dishta wasn't far off. This style is considered to be part of the Dishta style. Until now I only thought the typical Dishta flush inlay was Dishta style.
Here are some examples, none of the old ones are signed of course, but attributed to a member of the Dishta family. Happily, no proof of Native manufacture was no reason to throw them on the scrapheap.

Flush inlay earrings by Frank Dishta, the initiator of the style, not signed. My Frank Dishta cuff links (which I can't find right now) have the same kind of inlay.

http://savvycollector.com/products/...rrings-with-locking-ear-wires-by-frank-dishta

My own Dishta baby bracelet, confirmed, and likely to be by Frank:


Signed 1950s Robert Dishta earrings (the Robert Dishta ring above is also signed)

https://www.etsy.com/listing/464166...llery&ga_search_query=dishta&ref=sr_gallery_8

This listing refers to "Vintage turquoise Zuni ring characteristic of Dishta styling".

https://www.etsy.com/listing/476308372/vintage-turquoise-silver-zuni-dishta?ref=market

Whoever made my ring, I wasn't wrong in calling it Zuni style. Otherwise I wouldn't have done so, of course. I was careful in calling it Zuni style, and not Zuni. Just like I was careful in calling a bracelet Navajo style a while ago. As far as I understand the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, that is the correct term, even if it was made by an individual of combined white, black, brown, Asian ancestry. The object of the act was to distinguish between Native made and Native style. They did, of course, strip pre-Act Native items of their identity. That, along with the fact that there is no quality control, and other oversights, makes it a very rickety act imho. They could have looked at organisations like the Hopi Arts and Crafts Silvercraft Cooperative Guild. But I'm probably too European to understand.
But whatever we think of the ring or its origins, we can at least give credit to the Zuni for developing the style. Although the famous Zuni silversmithing tradition was started by a non-Native American of Scottish descent (Wallace, a Scottish family of Norman origin).
If anyone else ever objects to older jewellery being called Zuni style, I may have to start calling it Scottish American style.
It would be interesting to see the reactions.

By the way, if anyone is embarassed by owning unsigned Native style jewellery, I would be more than willing to take it off their hands.

 

And many before that as well. Most turquoise cracks easily, very few stones can be used untreated. That is why stabilising turquoise is an old custom, the Chinese have been doing it for centuries using beeswax, in the US Southwest they started with sheep's fat. Both methods lead to a deterioration of colour over a period of time and you can't expose the stones to heat after they've been treated. Some traders in the Southwest noticed greasy puddles after their jewellery had been displayed in a sun exposed shop window for a while.
Here is some info:
http://nevada-outback-gems.com/turq_info_pages/Turquoise_inf_treatment.htm

 

I've a ring with a similar centre setting and turquoise. It's old Bavarian.

 

If you have a photo I can probably tell you if it actually is old Bavarian, my mother had a collection of old Bavarian 'Trachtenschmuck', traditional jewellery.
But there is a lot of Native American jewellery in Germany, the seller may not have known what it actually was. I used to work for the Zuni Gallery in Düsseldorf, Germany, selling NA jewellery and art.

Some Zuni rings, same design as mine, the first even with unmatched turquoise:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/517758045/native-american-old-pawn-zuni-turquoise?ref=market
I regularly see the term 'snake eye' as well, this one is exactly the same design as mine:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/529201115/vintage-snake-eye-turquoise-ring-size-55?ref=market

 

Nice to look at. I have a bunch of turquoise jewelry my ex bought me back in the 70s. Some from a Native Seminole jeweler who traveled to the SW every year and brought back fine pieces as well as stones. It's all in the safe deposit box for whichever of my kids wants it some day. Kind of hard to wear the exes jewelry with my current hubby of 30 years.