JSW580 Ingot Silver Cuff

Ingot silver cuff by Arizona silversmiths Joe O'Neill/ Bubba Shackelford. The 1/4” hand stamped cuff has a 3/16” x 1/2” Damele turquoise. The heavy gauge silver cuff is 6” with a 1” gap. Hallmark: FTC (Falcon Trading Co.)

This old style cuff was created the old school way: made by hand and made of ingot sterling silver poured into tufa stone. Tufa is known to give the metal texture, but with this cuff, the Tufa texture was then pounded out by hand forging the metal through pounding and working the metal into shape. Later it is filed and stamped.

Falcon Trading Company was started in the early 1980s by Cowboy Bubba Shackelford in Prescott Arizona.  Bubba produced FTC jewelry for many years afterwards, until his sight began to fade from diabetes. In 2014 Bubba took on a young student at that time named Joe O'Neill, who is now the head silversmith at Falcon Trading, and works with Bubba daily to continue on the tradition of creating beautiful tufa cast ingot jewelry in the southwestern/Santa Fe style.

The Damele mine is located in east-central Nevada near the Carico Lake mine. Damele turquoise is quite distinctive because the zinc content turns the stone yellow-green and increases its hardness. The matrix of Damele is webbed with a dark brown to black matrix. The mine is small, thus its availability is limited. Due to its rare color, Damele is a collectible turquoise.