My search for and capture of the elusive concho belt

[ForrestGump]

Let us now praise the concho belt of the southwestern Indian nations....

Ever since I first visited the American southwest, decades ago, I have wanted a concho belt. A real one, a Navajo concho belt in silver with a leather strap and turquoise nuggets. But even way back then the authentic ones started at $400 so I satisfied myself with a metal-link one from a souvenir store (I think at the most excellent Sonora Desert Museum outside Tucson, AZ) that I called my "five percent belt" because it only cost me $8. I wore that thing quite a bit, 'til eventually too many links and conchos fell off and I couldn't find them all.

But I still really, really wanted a nice concho belt. A real one. A solid, substantial one.

Fast forward a couple of decades and there I am, starting out as a novice ersatz Elvis, and delving into eBay for accessories. One of the first, before the jumpsuits and the custom belts, was a concho belt. Again, though, what I bought was a fairly cheap approximation of the real thing. It looked good enough in pictures and at normal personal distances, but I knew it was not a lot more authentic than were the pieces of my five-percent belt.

It didn't sate my desire for the real thing.

So, once I started bringing in some decent money a bit earlier this year, I began scouring eBay in earnest for a good concho belt. Recently I bid on two excellent candidates that ended up going for mere cents or dollars more than I bid but, in both cases, temporarily slow Internet access foiled at the very last moment my procurement of these works of art and I missed each by that much. Very frustrating, indeed. The final prices on these and other near-misses were good, too, for what the things are: $150 to $275. It's a lot to pay for a mere belt (not that vintage or otherwise authentic concho belts are merely belts) but when you start paying $50 to $80 for shirts (something I'd only ever done once before I started buying Elvis shirts, that I remember) and far more for replicas of Elvis' belts and jumpsuits (some of the suits available commercially go for over $4000), a $200 belt doesn't sound quite so exorbitant or frivolous. And one of the rationalizations in play here was, of course, that I'd use the belt in my work as part of various Elvis get-ups. These belts are, unfortunately for me, sought after by collectors as pieces of art, and some of the prices on them are therefore very high -- look on eBay, for example, and you'll see some concho belts with an opening bid of $1500 or more.

So I kept looking. One glorious day a belt that was absolutely stunning, a vintage piece from the early '60s not only signed by the famous Navajo silversmith who handcrafted it (in sterling silver with lots of turquoise) but that included the pawn ticket with his name on it, crossed my eBay watch list. I fell in love. I bid on it. I was the lead bid for days. The bitter irony was that the more expensive of the two belts I'd bid on earlier then came available to me at my last bid because the auction's winner didn't come through (I was offered a 'second chance' auction) but I couldn't take advantage of the deal because I'd already bid on this other creation. And this one had the added attribute of being almost exactly like the one that Elvis is seen wearing in many offstage photos in 1969 and 1970 (he had several concho belts, but that one was the most photographed and also showed up in his 1970 concert documentary):



But it went over even my most reckless price range in the last few minutes and sold for something way over $1000. Ditto another, very similar, belt a week or so later, a belt produced by the same artist in the early '60s and also complete with pawn receipt. In fact, for all I know, this dude made Elvis' belt, because the resemblance is striking enough and he does seem to have been one of the more well-known and prestigious Navajo silversmiths.

Anyway, I finally got my chance. Found a nice-looking belt with turquoise nuggets (not all around the rims of the conchos and butterflies, though, like the other two and Elvis', and I'm sure it's some kind of nickel silver and not sterling) and took a flying guess at what the reserve price was. I was right. And I was the only person who bid on it, possibly because others were scared away by the seller having only one eBay transaction (as a buyer) to their name, a factor I considered but I was pretty sure that PayPal would protect me and, besides, I wanted a damned concho belt. Finally got one. :D

The price is not one I'd have paid before, in a hurry, but it was acceptable because (a) I've wanted a concho belt for exactly half my life now, (b) I can use it as Elviswear (though I know darned well that this rationalization is a little iffy because I'll wear it primarily as part of my own casual wear), and (c) right now, at least, I can afford it. After all, I just spent $100 on two new puffy-sleeved shirts for the Elvis gig and I'm likely to spend $1000 or more on bulk purchases from the manufacturer of studs and stones for ever more elaborate jumpsuits I'm planning to make in the next few months, so what this belt cost me -- pretty much what I've been making in a four-hour work night lately -- is not as obscene as I might have thought at other times. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. I'm happy.

A few days before I got my 'prime' concho belt, I got another one (not Navajo made, and not sterling silver but some kind of nickel 'silver') as the only bidder for a rather nice $65...it's got large cabochons of turquoise set into each concho and is the link style of concho belt. It may not be authentic in provenance, but I like how it looks and it's also destined for dual use in both Elvis and Forrest modes.

And now, heaven help me, I can't stop -- a few days ago, when it looked like the seller of the big concho belt wasn't going to pick up my PayPal payment and (as eBay sent me an e-mail advising me to) I might have to cancel the transaction, I chased another beautiful concho belt, heavily laden with turquoise and again the Zuni cluster-style belt like Elvis' (and yet again made by the same dude, Victor Moses Begay) all the way to seven-hundred-and-damn-fifty dollars before coming to my senses...that belt also just crossed the $1000 mark at bidding's end which, by the way, is still a significant bargain for such things.

And I'm currently watching this very nice, turquoise-heavy (totally different to either of my two belts) new (non-vintage, non-prestige, and non-Navajo-made) concho belt move along my eBay watch list...I mean, I swear I'll behave myself but, darn it, if that belt doesn't get too expensive I might just have to have it. But then I'll stop, I promise, because I've got more than enough expenses on the horizon (desperately need to attend to my motorcycle, too, and that's going to cost a bit) and my kind of work can -- and has, more than once -- so easily vanish in a flash and leave me with no income for a while.

Besides, I've only got one waist.

Here's my little link concho belt, in all its semi-precious glory:



And here's my big concho belt, at last:



Only took 21 years...

:D

[Lisa]

1. the King would be proud!

I hope you can get a real antique silver Navajo belt for yourself someday, Forrest! Wouldn't it be cool if you were right about who made Elvis's belt. I wonder what happened to it? Did they keep it at Graceland? Or did he do one of those mind-boggling Elvis gestures and give it to someone as a gift, before he died? I will ask my co-worker Michelle, a guru in All Things Elvis.

I had some good luck on eBay this week, too -- managed to get a European-made pre-Viking sword replica for about half the current going rate. I've been hoping to obtain one for some time now, but they're hard to find in North America, plus the manufacturer has increased his prices recently (similar ones now going for the Euro equivalent of $500 US, not including customs and shipping). I'd told myself that I would keep up with the eBay bidding if it stayed under the amount I made this month from overtime work. And it did ... for the first time since I started on eBay 3 years ago, one of the other bidders sent me a note saying he was backing out, since he already had one of those swords and now regretted "being greedy". (I put him onto a cool blacksmith I know in Oregon, who hand-forges Viking-type knives out of recycled logging cable, so he can get something different for his collection.)

I've been rationalizing my purchases with the thought that I could use them for work ... I teach environmental history every chance I get, and have started to jazz up my lectures on the Viking Greenland colonies, or the landscape changes that resulted from the Roman invasion of Britain, by bringing in a helmet or sword, and talking about how they extracted the metal and how much wood fuel it required. (Imagine my delight when I found a recent scientific report which found evidence of Roman smelting pollution in the first century AD, in Greenland ice cores.)

Re: "I've only got one waist" -- that's what they invented closet door belt racks for!
In fact -- I think you ought to consider putting together a display rack for all your Elvis belts. They look like the sort of collection which should be out there and admired, rather than shut away! Shouldn't be too hard on the wallet -- a plank and some matching wooden pegs -- and you can use that as a reminder of when to pause in your collecting! I've decided that once I have enough swords to fill the 6-compartment umbrella stand that's now in my living room, I'm going to stop. 2 more to go ...

[ForrestGump]

4. THAT is really cool

:headbang:

Congratulations on the winning bid! It's always cool when you can get something really good for way less than it perhaps should have or could have gone for, when it seems like everyone else in eBayLand is (for once) looking the other way for the entirety of the item's run up the auction chart (or if the leader throws the race, of course). I like that! And I like your way of setting the upper limit on where you were willing to buy...I do that kind of thing, too. It's too easy to get carried away with some of these things! So if you feel the need to buy another umbrella stand, I understand completely...

Sounds like you had the bonus of getting yourself a very good prop for your lectures, too. Not a bad thing to have around the house, either ("no, I'm, not interested in what you're selling...now, scat!"), We have to see a picture of this weapon now, of course. :-)

I have no idea what happened to any of Elvis' concho belts, but the archives and holdings at Graceland are massive (the dude had quite a wardrobe, for one) and it's possible they're languishing somewhere in there...entirely possible he gave the above belt away, too, of course. Along with a Cadillac.

I like the belt rack idea, actually...I really could use it. The only problem is that I got myself in all sorts of trouble the last time I went shopping and enquired as to whether they had any nice racks for sale... :shrug:

And thank you for your positive thoughts -- yep, one day I'm going to not balk at spending a thousand dollars or more for the real real thing. :D

[Lisa]

7. I used the remaining cash in my budget to commission a scabbard ...

... from the guy who was selling the sword. He's a woodworker, and I figured that the extra bit of work would help make up any shortfall in how much he'd be getting for the sword. (Probably the bidding would have gone higher if he'd listed it before Christmas, when people are shopping for presents, or just after -- when they might have some gift-money to spend.)

These swords are hard to find, and this one can't have been easy to part with -- perhaps selling it in combination with something he's made will make it a more enjoyable transaction. For me, having a custom touch like that makes the sword much nicer than the commercial item which I know it was. There's a small dent in the hardwood part of the hilt, which the seller was up front about from the very beginning -- that, and adding a handcrafted scabbard, makes it into something to be used and handled. (Like the Star Wars toys being played with by kids, rather than put away unopened to be sold at a profit years later ... or Elvis actually wearing his belt onstage, rather than hoarding it for the silver.)

I know what you mean, about being outbid on an item you really had your heart set on, at the last minute ... that's happened to me too (and I've been ripped off a couple of times also). Usually I will err on the side of caution (do I really want to spend that much? do I even need this at all?) though I can't help being tempted by hard-to-find stuff. I like to think I've saved some money by not bidding -- or at least reserved it for when something even better shows up! But it's really nice when a deal comes through, and the item turns out to be just perfect. (Even more than the sword, I think the best eBay buy I made in the past few months was a $3 back issue of "Canadian Geographic", which the librarian at my workplace had been trying to find ... she wanted to send that year in for binding, and wasn't able to until now, because January was missing. She was so pleased when I managed to find it for her.)

I guess in the long run, we've both had to do some homework -- you've learned a lot about concho belts and the work of various Southwestern artisans, and I've had to study up on who makes decent replica Viking-type swords. I like to think that this could come in handy again someday -- if not for detecting and rescuing some splendid item from a garage sale, at least expanding our knowledge and leading on to something else! (And now I know to PM you if I need to find out about Southwestern silver and turquoise in a hurry.) I predict that someday you will be playing Vegas, and the reporters interviewing you will be floored by your knowledge of Elvis's accessories and the role he played in making those belts so popular!

Here's a pic from the original swordmaker's site (Del Tin, Italy). These "Dark Ages" swords are unusual because they bridge the gap between the Roman and medieval eras (from King Arthur to Charlemagne?). The hilt's guard and pommel are made up of layers of metal and organic materials (wood and horn or antler?). This takes a lot of work to match them up properly, so most swordmakers prefer simpler designs.



http://www.deltin.net/2070.htm
(closeup of hilt)



My equivalent of the fabled just-like-Elvis's real silver concho belt:
(swords made by a renowned craftsman who lives on the East Coast)

http://www.powning.com/jake/commish/swords.shtml


By the way -- when I was carrying my newly-bought umbrella stand home, one of my co-workers caught sight of me. He leaned out of his car and yelled "nice rack!". (I don't think this will happen to you, though. If only because he's in a different town.)

[ForrestGump]

9. That is QUITE a sword. I'm surprised at how lightweight it is.

Just a couple of pounds for the Del Tin example? I imagine the originals were a tad heavier, metallurgy having progressed a little in the interim. Impressive blade, though, and the details are just great. Are your swords all -- to borrow from makers of the Chinese swords I'm more familiar with -- "combat steel," in that they are all designed to have and hold an edge and can be used as actual edged weapons? I must say, I really like the idea of having him make a scabbard...not only is it a practical idea, but it just seems so appropriate.

I know what you mean about eBay winnings -- good job with Canadian Geographic, too! -- and how gratifying it can be to win just the right thing, especially if it's something you'd tried and tried to get before or something that you thought you'd never see again (perhaps even something from childhood that you thought was extremely obscure or rare). Lately I've been buying quite a few clothes through eBay -- not Elvis stuff so much these days (though I recently bought some fixings for making jumpsuits and belts) -- because I have always tended to be attracted to kind of eclectic clothing (kinda natural a fit, really, that I'd end up dressing as Elvis!) and my extant wardrobe's pretty sparse because most of it's in storage in another state. So far I've managed to get great prices on things like a leather greatcoat (always wanted one...got it for $33 and it's worth probably ten times that, new), colorful silk shirts, an embroidered Mexican linen shirt, Chinese silk jackets, pirate-style shirts with lace-up fronts and/or sleeves (very expensive, though...seems like it's a 'Goth' fashion these days, though I always thought they were cool), a leather vest and leather pants...all sorts of things. And, of course, the concho belts. I originally started my esoteric fashion spree because I wanted some clothes for a special thing I was going to do, but that fell through and I just kept on making my wardrobe more interesting -- the catch is that I hardly ever wear anything but my black leather armored motorcycle gear (I run almost all my errands thusly), Elvis clothes (on the job), or boxers (at my place) but, if I ever have cause to go out without riding my bike, I'll be one interestingly-dressed dude. :D

And, yeah, nobody yelled out "nice package!" when I went to pick up my concho belt.. :D

[Lisa]

11. sounds like a versatile wardrobe!

One of my co-workers has a lovely assortment of vintage clothes, and she is so talented at putting together outfits that she rarely has to buy anything new these days. Some of the items are things she got in the 1970s, and even then she had an eye for clothing that would last a long time, and look good on her decades later. Last winter she jazzed up a grey wool coat with floral embroidery (her new hobby), and it looks totally different now. I'd love to be able to do that.


Re: the swords ... actually, a lot of modern replicas tend to be heavier than the originals! Whether one is shaping a sword with a hammer the old-fashioned way, or (as is the case for more and more companies these days) doing it by "stock removal" (grinding the bar into shape with machinery), the tendency is to have thicker blades. This also gives more strength when the steel isn't very good. The really highly-regarded companies like Del Tin (and Albion in Wisconsin) try to approximate the weight of the real swords, even sending staff to visit museums and carefully weigh and measure actual examples -- but most of the firms which make or sell swords are satisfied if a sword looks authentic from about a hundred feet away. (Sometimes they don't even bother with that, so one way or another, their buyers end up being cheated.)

And they don't get called on it, unless someone at a re-enactment group (http://www.larp.com/legioxx/bad.html) or collector's club (e.g. SwordForum online) takes them to task. After all, most of us don't get the chance to hold real antique swords so we just assume that they are supposed to be heavy and unwieldy (they're made of metal, after all, right?). Even Del Tin has a bunch of Viking swords which are a bit longer than in real life -- many of them were 36"-37" or less, not +39". Some of this might be due to ease of manufacturing -- make a whole bunch of standard-length blades and put a "Viking" or "Crusades" hilt on to differentiate them, even though the Crusaders tended to have longer cavalry-type swords. I was shocked when I picked up an Albion sword -- it seemed incredibly light. (A lot of the customer testimonials on their webpage mention this too.) But apparently that is what they're supposed to be like.

Okay, admittedly there are good safety reasons to have a thick sword blade -- a lot of re-enactment societies require the edge to be blunt (thicker than one or even two pennies). And when people are doing staged fights at renn faires the audience likes to see them parrying with the edge of the blade, though in the Middle Ages they tried to use their shields rather than risk breaking their swords. So unless you want to keep buying new swords, you go with something like a Starfire which is built for this kind of stunt work. (I bought a couple of used ones this summer, to donate to the local Shakespeare troupe -- the two-handers are so heavy I can barely swing them.)
http://www.starfireswords.com/web-pages/products/thumb_pages/steel_thumbs.php

Some of the companies which produce overseas knockoffs (cranking out thousands of "Lord of the Rings" imitation swords and "Highlander" blades that show up on eBay) have been criticized for truly awful clunkers -- not even tempered, just sword-shaped pieces of metal that you can bend permanently with your hands! They try to conceal this by making them really thick, but a blade that's been knocked or dropped will get a kink in it anyway. Even when the blade is the authentic thickness and they claim it's good steel, often the tempering is off so they chip or snap fairly easily. There was someone on one of the medieval internet groups, complaining that he'd paid several hundred dollars for a Paul Chen Viking sword that broke when he tried it out on a quarter-inch plank.

I suppose there are similar examples with the imitations of Navajo silver. Someone who's copying a real necklace in base metal can try to replicate the original's weight by just making it bulkier. (This seems to happen with imitation coins too.) And unless you look at the real stuff, you get the impression that silver is always clunky and thick -- when it can actually look quite delicate.

Another thing to look for in a replica sword is the durability of the handle. The terms "battle-ready" or "combat-ready" were supposed to refer to the tang running the length of the hilt, and being wide and strong enough to withstand considerable shock (rather than "rat-tail", or with a threaded rod attached by a weld which might crack off). Unfortunately, they're often used as advertising patter, just like "handmade" or "hand-forged". I've been tempted to buy a lot of swords because they look nice, but I've tried to focus on ones which are made here in North America by craftspeople who don't have access to a lot of machinery, and whose designs I like. It's just turned out that these swords tend to be "battle-ready" in the original sense (full-tang, often hand-forged). Since they are arguably "artwork", I hope that they will keep their value even if they've suffered "battle" or rust damage (one way in which I've been able to save some money). They do seem to look nicer as they age, than the ones built of factory-made components.

I would like to get a sword from Albion someday -- they seem to know what they're doing! A few years ago I bought one of their Celtic swords second-hand (had to scour off some rust, but it came out looking quite good). A friend admired it so much that I ended up giving it to her for her birthday. (She's Chinese, and I thought that it would be nice if she had a present that wasn't made in China, for a change!)
http://www.albion-swords.com/swords-functional.htm


At present I have another Del Tin (one of the Norman-era models) -- and examples from these smiths. (All of them I purchased "pre-owned", since I'm on a budget ... it would be nice if I had enough money to actually support these artisans directly by commissioning something, but lacking that, being part of the secondary collector market does help them out a bit, I hope!)

Lonely Mountain Forge (a plain Viking-type)
http://members.aol.com/gijchar/darkage.htm#typel

Kirby Wise (an ordinary Viking-Norman type)
http://www.kirbywise.com/

Jake Powning, the only Canadian smith so far (Celtic claymore, plain blade)
http://www.powning.com/jake/commish/swords.shtml


And a Saxon-type knife made from recycled logging cable by Daniel Klug at White Hart Forge in Oregon (this one I got directly from him)
http://www.spiritone.com/~dklug/

I also have a Windlass Steelcrafts hand-and-a-half (sometimes called "bastard" sword), which I got quite cheaply since it's badly rusted ... once I clean it up, I will probably donate it to the Shakespeare people along with the Starfires, as an ornamental prop (not strong enough for stage combat). And an el-cheapo Roman gladius (almost twice the weight of the Albion gladius!) which I modified to be a bit more authentic, following the instructions at this site ... it will be going to a downtown bookstore on extended loan shortly, for their "Roman crime fiction" window display.
http://www.larp.com/legioxx/gladius.html


p.s. the Powning is the only one that's sharp, and it's tucked away in a case (the Wise is sorta-sharp, but not enough to cut your finger on). Which is just as well, because multiple sharp objects just would not mix well with my natural klutziness.

[jus_the_facts]

2. Love me some turquoise.....

....one keepsake from my grandfather's passing was his stirling silver and turquoise watch band he bought in Mexico...I'll cherish it always. :)

The belt is choice...I like it. :thumbsup:

[ForrestGump]

5. Thank you, Ms the_facts!

:hi:

The watch band is really nice, I bet -- I like a lot of that kind of thing, too, and would probably be decked out in it now and then if I tended to wear jewelry in non-Elvis mode and if some of it wasn't so expensive (I've been eying the Navajo squash-blossom necklaces on eBay, this time primarily as an Elvis accessory, but most of them seem to go for seveal hundred or a thousand dollars or more and I haven't yet seen one quite as ornate as the one Elvis was most opften pictured wearing). Nice.

I believe that Navajo or Hopi legend holds that turquoise came from the tears of a god who turned blue. Something like that, anyway.

[Aristus]

3. Jim Morrison frequently sported one, too.

[ForrestGump]

6. I thought of that when I

tried the belt out over the leather pants in my picture... :D

Oh, yeah, baby...feelin' like the Lizard King himself.

[Elidor]

8. That's a pretty big build-up

For your first public crotch-shot.

:hide:

[ForrestGump]

10. Dude...

:P

Where've you been? I'm a crotch-shot king. I'm leery of posting my face here, so the crotch is about the only part of me I feel comfortable posting here. :D

I offer you exhibits A through E:



Pretty soon, people will be begging me not to post any more pictures taken anywhere near my center of my life gravity...