JSW578 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” Golden Hills turquoise. The heavy gauge silver cuff is 5 3/4” with a 1 1/8” 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.

A special stone available this year is Kazakhstan Turquoise, or Golden Hills Turquoise, a rare color for turquoise. Golden Hills Turquoise comes from a deposit in the Altyn Tyube mine in Kazakhstan. These stunning gems have a light blue hue to them, and a reddish, burnt umber matrix.