By Porter Lang
Taxco makes you check the stamp. Not because anyone is suspicious, but because this town has a stamp history, and the history is part of what you are buying.
Start with the place. Wikipedia gives Taxco de AlarcĂłn a population of 105,586 in 2020, at 1,778 meters above sea level, on 347 square kilometers. It was founded in 1529, the article says, and silver was discovered around 1532. It gained municipal status in 1850. The streets are described as dark stone adorned with lines, pictures and even murals in white stone, and most buildings have Spanish-style red-tile roofs. The article notes the town’s designation as a Pueblo Mágico, a Magical Town, and says tourism has replaced mining as the main economic activity.
Silver and a church
The mining era left a landmark. Wikipedia says the Santa Prisca church was built between 1751 and 1758, in the mid-eighteenth century era of the mine owner José de la Borda. The article also describes ten major Holy Week processions, dating back to at least 1622. We have not checked those dates against a church or tourism source.
The American who started a workshop
The modern silver trade has a person at its start. Wikipedia’s article on the town says William Spratling arrived in the late 1920s. His own article gives more detail. He was born on September 22, 1900, in Sonyea, New York, bought a house in Taxco in 1928, and established the Taller de las Delicias workshop in 1931. He recruited two master goldsmiths, Alfonso MondragĂłn and Artemio Navarrete, as supervisors. The workforce reached 422 during the Second World War, and he ran design contests from the mid-1930s. He incorporated the business as Spratling y Artesanos in 1945, sold a controlling interest to outside investors that year and withdrew in 1946. He died on August 7, 1967, near Taxco, in an automobile accident.
Apprentices from the workshop, the same article says, include Antonio Pineda, HĂ©ctor Aguilar, Antonio Castillo, Jorge Castillo, Reveriano Castillo, Miguel Castillo and Salvador Terán. We list the names because the article does, as history. We have not checked which of these makers’ workshops are still operating, and we are not recommending any of them.
The dates differ a little. The town article says Spratling arrived in 1929, and the biography says he bought his house in 1928. We are not choosing between them.
Silver marks
This is the part a buyer can use. A hallmark-history site says the eagle mark was adopted in 1948 and enforced widely from about 1955, and that the system ran until roughly 1979 to 1980. Each eagle carried a number, it says. It gives examples: eagle 1 for the Mexico City assay district, eagle 3 for the Taxco district, eagle 9 for HĂ©ctor Aguilar’s Taller Borda, eagle 17 for Antonio Pineda, eagle 30 for Los Castillo and eagle 34 for Margot de Taxco. The pieces typically also carry 925 or Sterling, the same site says, indicating the .925 standard.
Earlier silver, it adds, lacked standardized marks. Spratling’s 1930s work carried hand-struck marks and not the eagle. The site gives a rough timeline: hand-struck maker punches from the 1920s to 1947, the eagle introduced alongside older stamps from 1948 to 1955, a standardized eagle and number system from 1955 to 1979, and letter-and-number codes replacing the pictorial eagles from 1980. That is one hobby site’s summary, and we have not checked it against an official source. If you are looking at a piece, ask the seller what the marks say and when they were used.
The silversmiths today
Wikipedia says over 3,000 silversmith artisans call Taxco home. The number is the article’s and we have not found a second source. The article also says the National Silver Fair is held in late November and early December. Dates may have changed, so check with the municipality.
What to ask
Turn the piece over and find the stamps. Ask what the 925 means to the person selling it, and who made the piece. Ask whether the piece is handmade or cast, and whether the marks match its claimed age. A town with this much silver and this many workshops invites a short list of good questions, and the answers are worth more than the discount.
We are not naming a workshop, because we have not sourced one for this piece.
Roam first. Shop later.