So I thought I would share this with everyone and see what guess you have as far a maker. I caught the one tell tale on the piece. Can you? Very cute in a Harvey Era kinda way. The truth will amaze some of you. Thoughts? I will post the answer on Monday(if you can’t wait till Monday it is on my site).
Well no guess to date on this one, but here is the answer for those that may have wondered about it. My big tell on this one is the missing stamp work above on the right.
I wanted to play but I don’t know much about storyteller bracelets or overlay. Or Mexican silver. But it’s good to learn.
I’m assuming that Mexican and Native American silver have influenced each other back & forth over the years, though each have some separate and very distinctive forms.
I think it may be a more one sided thing. I have seen many Mexican pieces that copy the Native American, not many at all that copy the Mexican styles. I just got a really nice lapis pendant that I would have sworn was Native American, but it turned out to be Mexican. The work is so good and the quality of the lapis so nice, I decided to keep it. That is one thing that I do notice when a Mexican smith copies the Native American work, they use better stones than what is normally in the Mexican and Taxco stuff.
Just looking through old posts to see and learn. I have a lot of jewelry from Mexico, because I like it and the culture. The give away for me as the scene, the hats, more like sombreros and the mother and child! I don’t have any of these from Native American artists. Thanks for sharing!
It was the symmetry being out that caused me took closer at the cuff. Over the years I have seen more instances if this kind of error or miss stamps on sterling from Mexico that is made to look like old pawn or Native American; many more than the times I found this kind of miss stamp or error on authentic old pawn. One tell tale sign that always makes me look closer.
That makes sense. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience with us. And now that you mention it, I have this Mexico ring, it has a wave pattern but it doesn’t go all the way around the ring
What your pictures tell me is that this could be band stock. Is there any other marking besides the Mexico, 925? Is there a 2 letter - number as well? Alot of the newer Taler’s or silver houses in Taxco and Mexico will make lengths of Ring band all at one time. They then cut them to different sizes and weld them into rings. I am 98% certain that is what you have here. I would say that this is recent, like the last 10 years, more likely from a smaller silver house. Value on a ring like this would be in the area of $30 to $40 dollars new if bought outside of Mexico, and closer to $20 inside Mexico.
I guess that’s a good thing, I bought it at a pawn shop for $9.95 and all I could really make out at the time was the .925 I’ve read a little bit about Mexico silver trying to figure out what the other letters were. Seems to be TC-211 can’t tell if there’s anything else being covered by the black blob. So? Made in Taxco by the 211th silversmith who was registered, whose name starts with the letter C? (Edit)…Answering my own question, it seems it would be the 211th silver house, not smith, and they would have used many different smiths under this hallmark.
Looking around late last night and early this morning, it seems there’s a lot of stuff out there attributed to this TC-211 hallmark, once I had the “band stock” term. Thanks.
You are correct. TC is for Taxco, and 211 is for either the 211th person or Silver house registered to use it.
