Vintage Mexican Silver: More Than Jewelry

Vintage Mexican silver jewelry has, of course, become a really popular collectible. And many good books have helped raise awareness about Mexico-designed silver jewelry.

Less attention has been paid to other metal objects – silver and otherwise - made by the same designers so well-known for their jewelry.  Hector Aguilar, Salvador Teran, Los Castillos, Miguel Martinez, Sigi Pineda, Victoria, and Bernice Goodspeed are just a few of the designers who went beyond silver jewelry.

Mexican Jewelry & Metal Art, by Leslie Pina, is a great book that goes beyond jewelry to show the range and creativity in metal work of designers we mostly associate with Mexican silver jewelry. It has detailed captions with value ranges accompanying 1000+ color photographs and includes a bibliography, index, illustrated glossary, and illustrated hallmarks – highly recommended!

Here are a few  interesting examples of metal art from some of the great Mexican designers:

Hector Aguilar hand-wrought copper bowl with brass trim at M.Schon

Los Castillo mixed metals box; wonderful inlaid design with azure-malachite at M. Schon

 Sigi Pineda mixed metals and inlaid stone plaque at M.Schon

You can see many more fine pieces at the M.Schon gallery.