Effie Calavaza was a Zuni silversmith, and hers is one of the most recognisable signatures in all of Southwestern jewelry. You do not really need to see the stamp. You look for the snakes.
Her design is unmistakable: silver serpents coiling up and around a large central stone, heads meeting near the top, bodies carrying the texture of her stamp work. The snake is a serious figure at Zuni, tied to water and healing, and Calavaza built an entire body of work around it across more than half a century at the bench. She began silversmithing in the 1950s and worked on into her nineties, and her pieces are held by galleries worldwide.
The stones are the classic pairing, and it runs right through this collection: strong blue turquoise against deep red coral, set in heavy sterling silver that has been sand-cast rather than fabricated from sheet. That casting is what gives an Effie piece its soft, slightly molten surface and its weight in the hand.
What we hold here is mostly bolo ties and rings, several of them built on the turquoise-and-coral combination that made her name. Her work signs EFFIE C. ZUNI, and where a piece carries that stamp its own listing says so.
Provenance matters with this name, because the style has been widely imitated. Everything on this page came through our own buying. Silver Star Jewelry has been in Old Town Scottsdale since 1979, and you are welcome to take any piece out of the case and look at it properly. You can also read our Turquoise Guide, or see the rest of our artists.