Our History:

In the late 1930’s William (Lucky) Brown moved to Arizona from Texas. He made an attempt at professional baseball, which did not turn out as he had hoped. Soon after he began working for Phelps Dodge Mining Co. in Morenci, Arizona. While working in their large open pit copper mine, a blue colored stone caught his eye. Realizing this blue rock was in fact turquoise and very valuable, Lucky eventually negotiated a contract with his now previous employer and started mining the turquoise exclusively.

His investment paid off and he began trading and selling the “Morenci Turquoise” to the Navajo, Santo Domingo, and Zuni tribes. Many hours spent traveling to and from reservations eventually led to the opening of his first trading post in Gallup, NM “The Blue Gem” in 1946 with partner J.W. Edger. As demand continued to grow for this beautiful material so did Lucky’s mining interests, he opened turquoise mining operations in Colorado (Villa Grove), Elfrida in Arizona and several other mines in Nevada. Between 1949 and 1976 Lucky and his wife Bernice also went on to open trading posts in Albuquerque NM, Continental Divide NM, Gallup NM, and Safford AZ. Having both mining and ranching interest in Arizona, Lucky eventually retired to Safford, where he spent his remaining years working cattle on his ranch and helping Bernice run their trading post.

Today, two more generations of the Brown family continue cutting beautiful natural turquoise primarily (Morenci Turquoise). This connection has enabled us the opportunity to obtain many one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces to offer our customers. Many of the pieces seen on our website were purchased directly from the talented artists, many that were good friends of the family. We hope to present their work with the respect they deserve.

We guarantee that items purchased from our web site will contain natural materials and will be hand crafted, unless otherwise stated. We will continue to offer beautiful stones and rough materials, along with both vintage and contemporary jewelry. With our knowledge of vintage jewelry, we have obtained several outstanding collections that will be offered on our website. We accept consignments of both Native American Jewelry and turquoise. Please call 928.965.3245 or 928.965.3248. We THANK you for the continued patronage and friendship and promise to continue offering the highest quality items! We welcome any questions you might have about Turquoise or any of the items we carry. Browns Trading Co. We are full members of Antique Tribal Arts Dealers Association, ATADA.