Authentic Arizona Souvenirs: Skip the Shot Glass, Bring Home the Real Thing

The trouble with the shot glass

Nothing against shot glasses. But turn one over and you’ll usually find it was printed far from the desert, in a run of thousands, with “Arizona” swapped in where last week’s batch said “Florida.” It isn’t a piece of Arizona; it’s a label. The same goes for most of the rack: the magnets, the keychains, the cactus snow globe (a genuinely funny object, we’ll admit).

Here’s what makes this state different. Arizona is one of the few destinations on earth where the genuinely local souvenir is also a world-class one. Turquoise came out of this ground — Sleeping Beauty near Globe, Kingman in the northwest, Bisbee down by the border — and generations of Navajo, Zuni, and Hopi artists turned it into one of the great jewelry traditions anywhere. You can spend shot-glass money here and get a shot glass. Or you can spend a little more, once, and carry home something someone made with their hands, that names its own origin, and that somebody in your family will still be wearing decades from now.

Three questions that sort the real from the rack

You don’t need a gemology course. Wherever you shop in Arizona — our store included — three questions do most of the work:

• Who made it? Real pieces have makers. In Native American jewelry, the artist’s name is the mark of authenticity — a good shop tells you whose hands made the piece, whose hallmark is stamped in the silver, and puts it in writing. Federal law backs you up here: the Indian Arts and Crafts Act makes it illegal to sell anything falsely suggested to be Native American–made.
• Where did the material come from? A genuine turquoise stone has an address — a dealer who buys well can name the mine. A great deal of what tourist corridors sell as “turquoise” is dyed howlite or plastic resin, which is why we wrote a whole guide to telling real turquoise from fake. If the answer to “where’s the stone from?” is a shrug, keep your wallet in your pocket.
• Will it outlive the trip? Sterling silver, natural stone, hand carving — these hold up, hold value, and get handed down. The printed mug fades in the dishwasher. Buy the thing that gets kept.

The gift list: real Arizona, person by person

Everything below sits in our cases at 7254 E Main St right now — these are real categories from our own gallery, not hypotheticals. What you see online is what’s in the store.

Real doesn’t have to mean extravagant

The honest part of this guide: genuine handmade work has a price floor, and it should — an artist was paid, and a real stone was mined. A five-dollar “turquoise” trinket is answering its own question. But real doesn’t have to mean the top of the case. Instead of a bag of printed souvenirs that will scatter and fade by spring, consider a small genuine piece — a pendant, a pair of stud earrings, a single stone honestly set in sterling — one gift instead of ten, and the one that gets kept. We’d rather sell you one true thing than ten of anything else, and that’s the advice we give even when it sends people two doors down.

Beyond our own door

Which brings us to the neighbors — because not every real Arizona souvenir is jewelry, and Old Town is full of shops we genuinely like. The Merchantile gathers handmade goods from more than fifty Arizona artisans under one roof. Bischoff’s Shades of the West is the hunting ground for southwestern pottery and textiles for the house. Mexican Imports carries folk art with real color and character. Kactus Jock, a few doors down from us on Main Street, does the cheerful Arizona-tee-and-cap end of things better than anyone — for the kids and the office, it’s exactly right. And a short drive away, Cosanti casts Paolo Soleri’s bronze wind-bells on site; no two sound alike. For the full walking tour — districts, timing, lunch, the Thursday-night ArtWalk our block sits on — see our insider’s guide to shopping Old Town Scottsdale.

Getting it home

The practical questions we answer daily, answered here: jewelry rides happily in a carry-on, and everything we sell comes boxed for travel. For anything you’d rather not carry — a squash blossom, a kachina, a piece of art — we ship nationwide, fully insured, so the gift can be waiting when you land. And if a ring you fall for needs to fit before your flight, there’s a working bench in the back of our store; sizing and repair happen right here, not sent away.

Souvenir questions, answered honestly