We do, of course, specialize in listing in our yellow pages , www.getyp.com the sources for Native American Indian Jewelry. This is the main part of our business. We look for authentic actual business that is selecting the quality jewelry that we strive to present in our directories.

We look for businesses that buy jewelry directly from the artist themselves in many cases.  However, some of the artists are scattered throughout the Reservations and it is almost impossible to find them, especially on short notice.  The Navajo Nation covers a territory larger than the combined states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.  It is the largest reservation-based Indian nation within the United States, both in land area and population.  More than 200,000 Navajos live on the 24,000 square miles of the Navajo Nation.  The Navajos' name for themselves is Diné, meaning "the people."  The Navajo Nation comprises approximately 16 million acres, mostly in northeastern Arizona, but including portions of northwestern New Mexico and southeastern Utah. It is a land of vast spaces and only a few all-weather roads. Eighty-eight percent of the reservation is without telephone service and many areas do not have electricity. SO you can see how important it is for our digital directories to make it easy for you to contact quality dealers of Authentic Silver turquoise jewelry.

So, bordering the Reservations are authorized traders to whom these artists take their products.  There, they are purchased from the artists, and there, we go when we are in the vicinity, and in turn, purchase these items on a wholesale basis.   

Most of the Navajo and Zuni jewelry we specialize in is made by family enterprises.  The older generations are the teachers of the younger people.  Some member of the family does the rough silver work.  Another member may set the stones.  Yet another may do the final polishing and buffing of the piece.

Please be careful, Third World knock-offs.  Yes, we find these, too.  Gotta be careful, as a few wholesalers do specialize in these fake Indian Jewelry items, but we pretty well know who they are.  Yep, they, too, are on the web, some of them. We prefer to list only legitimate honest representations of authentic Native American Jewelry.

This Third World stuff can usually be recognized for what it is with careful attention to detail.  We prefer to list and accept advertising only from trusted sources.  Many times consumers may be duped into believing they are in possession of something very valuable while the truth is, it may be nearly worthless!  We personally know of one gentleman who purchased a "turquoise" bead necklace only to find out much later that what he had was actually sheep droppings painted with glossy turquoise colored paint!  He was vexed, to say the least. We at www.yellowpagesnationwide.com do not want this to happen to you. Accordingly, our clients may indicate "Navajo", "Santo Domingo", "Hopi", "Zuni", or other such descriptions which means it is our belief that the piece being shown represents the style of a particular tribe as they know it.

There are numerous American Indian tribes and their jewelry style differences vary just as much. Depending on the tribe the difference in the materials used for making it (beads, shells, copper and silver, ivory, amber, turquoise and other stones) were major great trade items long before the arrival of foreigners in America.

After colonization, Native American jewelry stayed consistent even after Europeans came to America. However, European influences did have its changes in Native American Silver Turquoise Jewelry. There are two very general categories of Native American jewelry: metalwork, and beadwork.

Before Europeans came native metalwork was fairly simple, consisting primarily of hammering and etching copper into pendants or earrings and fashioning copper and silver into beads. After Navajo, Hopi and Pueblo artists learned silversmithing from the Spanish in the 1800's, metal jewelry arts blossomed in the Southwest, and distinctive native jewelry like the squash blossom necklace, Hopi silver overlay bracelets, and Navajo turquoise inlay rings developed from the fusion of the new techniques with traditional designs. Native beadwork, on the other hand, was already extremely advanced in pre-Columbian times, including the fine grinding of turquoise, coral, and shell beads into smooth heishi necklaces, the delicate carving of individual wood and bone beads, the soaking and piecing of porcupine quills, and the intricate stitching of thousands of beads together. Porcupine quillwork has nearly died out (though some young artists are taking a renewed interest in it) but all of these other forms of beadwork are still going strong, though imported Czech seed beads have been the favored medium among many Indian artists for centuries now.