TAXCO! FUN, QUIRKY & COLLECTIBLE JEWELRY

Decades before NAFTA became law in the 1990s, my mother made her own trade arrangements with her Mexican-American co-workers to occasionally buy a few pieces of Taxco sterling silver jewelry.

My mother didn’t buy much of the silver. She simply doesn’t wear much of any jewelry except for her wedding ring.  But many of her silver pieces are representative of some of the major styles of handcrafted Taxco.

For example, a pair of pierced earrings she bought is modernist geometric Taxco. The earrings are very large, double hoops.  The lower hoop on each earring balances like a Calder mobile kinetic sculpture.

Funny, my mother’s ears weren’t pierced when she bought the earrings.  Later in life she did have her ears pierced, but not for long.  Never really an earring wearer, let alone large hoops, my mother let her tiny holes close.

So my mother has never worn the Taxco mobiles.  I wear them. They are big fun and capture a lot of attention.

Besides the modernist geometric Taxco silver styles, some other

MAJOR CLASSES INCLUDE:

· Faun and Flora

· Whimsical

· Aztec, Mayan or Native Mexican

· Non-Jewelry Items

· Gemstone

TAXCO BIGGEST PLUSES

· The bright white color is easy to clean with a soft cloth.

·  The silver color is whiter than silver from other countries, in my opinion.

· The amount of the precious metal is always substantial and heavy. The only exception is a pair of earrings I purchased from a TV shopping channel.

· The modern silver pieces are 0.925, usually marked but not always.  Some vintage jewelry is an alloy blend of non-silver metals marked “alpaca”.

· It’s modestly priced-even with the silver spot price tripling over the last 2 years.  Right now there are items being sold online for less than $20 (with the Taxco hallmark). The prices on TV shopping channels seem higher because of the delivery charges.

This is a first in a series of periodic posts about Taxco artisan sterling jewelry.  Check back for more details.