Back to the Grand Canyon and supposed sterling silver earrings that do your ears wrong

Ok, this is the kind of thing I like about the internet. Every time I think I hate blogging I find another reason to continue. Like posting serial numbers of stolen equipment (prior post). It might be helpful. Probably not. But perhaps.

The other day I made a posting on the earrings we picked up at the Grand Canyon being stated to be sterling silver but they irritate my ears and Marty’s ears so badly we can’t wear them. So I doubt they’re sterling. Cleaning up some tonight I was surprised to find I still have the cards the earrings came on. They read “Fred Harvey, Native American, Sterling Silver.” Now, I’ve heard about the only place you can trust to get real American Indian jewelry in the southwest is at the Heard Museum, with the exception of American Indian shops and even there you have to be careful, like anywhere. If it reads “Native American” alone, despite the Federal laws on this, I’m not too trusting of it. No tribe, no stamp etc., but we weren’t looking for something to collect. We just saw some inexpensive, smallish turquoise earrings in a Grand Canyon shop that said “Native American” and “sterling silver” and so we assumed at least they’d be sterling silver. Since they were inexpensive (well my two pairs weren’t that inexpensive but were for American Indian) we assumed the worst about them, except they were in a shop that dealt in high price items as well and we assumed when they said sterling silver they’d at least be sterling silver.

Fred Harvey jewelry is actually known in the collector’s world because Fred Harvey was like the original Howard Johnsons in restaurants. It’s the company that brought restaurants to the railroads and Harvey Waitresses.

A website states that as using railroads for passengers died, tracks worn out by the the carting of WWII goods, and the US opting not to rebuild and instead investing in the highway system, the Harvey business moved into resorts and national parks. They were purchased in 1968 by the Amfac Corporation (Hawaiian) and “recently, Amfac was purchased by a Denver-based company”.

We visited the curio shop at the Maswik Lodge. No, didn’t stay there, but ate there. Big servings of food. I don’t recollect if it was good or not. And no I didn’t remember off hand it was the Maswik lodge but I found a photo of the cafeteria at the architectural website of Alton S. Lee and David A. Lee and that’s the cafeteria we ate at. You can compare and see how their pic has skylights and small cozy tables, but the skylights were closed when we were there and the tables were cafeteria big tables.

I like my pic better. I like the couple sitting there at that table. The people were mostly German and other nationalities and sounded like they were having a great time.

Or did we purchase the earrings at the Desert View Watchtower? Doesn’t matter, these are Fred Harvey and the Fred Harvey Company (which is no longer Fred Harvey) is stated by one website to be the sole concessionaire for “all establishments located within Grand Canyon National Park on the south rim.”

The Fred Harvey Company promoted American Indian art for the tourist trade. Then copied it.

By 1899, the Fred Harvey Company was supplying sheet metal and pre-cut, polished turquoise to smiths through the trading posts. The smiths then sold back to Harvey a supply of cheaply-made souvenir jewelry for tourists.

Soon, the Harvey Company was commissioning Indian-style machine-made jewelry. Indians may or may not have been employed for the handwork on these assembly-line pieces. Other manufacturers followed, producing earrings, bracelets, rings, brooches, pins, money clips, commemorative spoons and other trinkets. Collectors of this souvenir jewelry–often called “Harvey House” or “workshop jewelry”–look for its machined-tooled precision and uniformity, affectation of an Indian style, and relative delicate lines. The pieces were generally small, sized to sell cheaply. Turquoise, when used, was treated or coated to harden and enhance color. Designs were usually stamped, and common motifs were thunderbirds, lightning, and bows and arrows.

The differences between authentic and imitation silverwork are subtle, a condition exacerbated by the tendency of smiths to copy what is the most successful or profitable, and to lower their standards for tourists who are often looking for cheap mementos.

Source Collector’s Guide Online

Today there are Federal laws regulating that kind of thing,The Indian Arts and Crafts Act, so since what was sold was stated to be Native American it should be. For instance, it shouldn’t be just designed by an American Indian and made in China.

Regardless, we knew these were cheap earrings. We expected little except for them to be mass produced, having something to do with American Indians, and made with sterling silver.

OK, finally find that it was JMB Realty that purchased Amfac in 1988. More here on Xanterra Parks and Resorts.

Down to the nitty gritty. So, do I write Xanterra and tell them that we purchased three pairs of earrings from them that were supposed to be sterling silver and that we can’t wear any of them as our ears turn itchy and bright red and sore? Of course I’ve got no sales receipt,only the card backing for two of the pairs. Would they ignore me completely if I did, saying sorry no receipt? Yep. What if I said hey look I’ve got THIS BLOG where I wrote about it. They wouldn’t write back and tell me, “Who cares?” because they so woudln’t care. Right? Right.

But that totally sucks big time when you have three pairs of earrings you can’t wear. And that’s pretty well appalling when three pairs of earrings, all “Fred Harvey”, all said to be sterling silver, turn your ears raw itchy red and painful and inflammed. And when you’re a tourist, traveling through, there’s not much you can do about returns. And we paid in cash. And it was five months ago. Still, I’m irritated that I’ve got two pairs of earrings I can’t wear and Marty’s got one pair he can’t wear.

I might write them anyway.

Hey, I liked the Mesaki lodge itself, the little I saw of it. I don’t remember the food, like I said, but it may have been good. I remember enjoying the architecture of the cafeteria because it screamed GRAND CANYON LODGE CAFETERIA in big letters, and that was fun. They had lots of different food to choose from and that was fun. I know I had something Southwest-Mex becaue that’s all I was eating there was Southwest-Mex. I love Southwest-Mex food.

But then just about everything about the trip was fun to me. Hey, I was ravaged with hives the entire time and I was still having fun.

Well, that was entertaining (for me), reading up more on Harvey and finding out about where the Harvey business had been in the past several decades and learning that Xanterra sold me bad earrings.