David Yellowhorse is a fourth-generation Navajo Native American silversmith whose reputation for creating handmade tribal works of art has brought him recognition throughout the cutlery industry and the world. He began by working in his father's jewelry shop and eventually developed extensive skills working with silver, gold, and semi-precious stones. The Navajo culture and heritage are strongly reflected in David's work, making his handmade and limited edition pieces highly sought after.

 

To give you some fun background on David, he is world famous for customizing pocketknives, hunting knives and hatchets.  We are the first kitchen cutlery he has ever worked with.  While we were touring his shop outside of Lupton AZ, we noticed a plaque on the wall from the CIA thanking him for his dedicated service in the war on terror.  We naturally asked what that was about. 

 

David told us that 4 years ago a gentleman stopped at the Yellowhorse trading post on I40 and asked David’s sister if the Yellowhorse trading post meant David Yellowhorse, and if there was any way he could meet him.  David’s sister called him and told him that a gentleman wanted to meet him, so he came down to the trading post and introduced himself.  The gentleman said, “Mr. Yellowhorse I’m so happy to know you, it’s a long story but I thought I would never ever meet you.” He said, “You helped us find Bin Laden.” David looked at him and said, “Are you kidding?” 

The gentleman said, “Let me explain sir, my name is John, I’m retired now, I’m CIA.  I was going to retire when they hit the trade towers but my good friend and my boss in Washington begged me to stay, they said “we need to find these guys”.”. 

Our mission was to go to Afghanistan and find some friendlies that would help us find the people responsible for what happened in New York.  The only ones that would talk to us were tribesman.  These weren’t Taliban but Afghan tribesman that didn’t believe what the Taliban and these extremists believed. They were indigenous people, so they were trying to be friendly with them and get them to help them find the people that were responsible for 9/11.  We flew back to AZ and were having a big meeting in Scottsdale and at lunchtime I left and went to a jewelry store in Scottsdale and I saw these knives, they had 10 of them, they were beautiful, he said “we’ve got to take these back, this is a native American knife, we’ve got to take these back.  So, they bought them all, he’s telling David this, David says “Wow, must have cost you a bundle of money...” John said, “Well, the taxpayers paid for it.”

He said Mr. Yellowhorse, you helped us with these people through your artwork.  We presented these tribesmen with your knives and said “As a gift to the tribesmen of Afghanistan we present you with these gifts from our tribesmen in America.  We took them back and we won these people’s hearts, we got in tight with them.  And they helped us find Bin Laden in Pakistan.  David said “Well I heard it differently on how we found him and took him out.” John said, “you’ll never hear about us, we gave them the intel that took him out, I’m just so happy that I met the man that made these knives.  I just never thought in my lifetime I would meet you.  To make a long story short, John reached out to his boss who had also just retired and they met a few months later at a restaurant in Gallup NM and presented David with a plaque from the CIA and a mission coin from the CIA.

Please call for availability and pricing: 1-855-824-6352